THE    UNCOLLECTED     WEITINGS 


OP 


THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY. 


fe* 


^^ 


ifZ.^ 


U/hf^^ 


THE    UNCOLLECTED   WETTINGS 


OF 


THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY. 


A   PEEFACE  AND   ANNOTATIONS 

BY 

JAMES    HOGG. 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES.     VOL.   I. 


NEW  YORK: 
SCRIBNER  AND  WELFORD. 

LONDON:    SWAN  SONNENSCHEIN  &    CO. 
1890. 


[All  rights  reserved.] 


^f 


Richard  Clay  &  Sons,  Limited, 
London  &  Bungay. 


PEEFACE. 

'  The  last  fruit  off  an  old  tree  ! '  This,  in  the  words 
of  Walter  Savage  Landor,  is  what  I  have  now  the 
honour  to  set  before  the  public  in  these  hitherto 
'  Uncollected  Writings   of  Thomas  De  Quincey.' 

It  was  my  privilege  to  be  associated  intimately 
with  the  Author  some  thirty  to  forty  years  ago — 
from  the  beginning  of  1850  until  his  death  in  1859.* 
Throughout  the  whole  period  during  which  he  was 
engaged  in  preparing  for  the  Press  his  Selections 
Grave  and  Gay,  I  assisted  in  the  task. 

Of  the  singulai'ly  pleasant  literary  intercourse  of 
that  memorable  time  I  have  given  some  reminiscences 
in  Harper's  Magazine  for  this  month.  I  may  yet 
combine  in  a  Volume  with  these  some  amusing, 
scholarly  letters  in  my  possession,  and  a  Selection  of 
Papers  from  the  original  sources,  which  I  feel  war- 
ranted, by  the  Author's  own  estimate,  in  calling  De 
Quiiicey's  Choice  Works.  ]\Ieantime,  in  dealing  with 
the  various  Essays  and  Stories  here  gathered  together, 
I  limit  myself  to  such  notes  as  are  necessary  to  point 

*  De  Quincey,  Leigh  Hunt,  and  Macaulay  all  died  in 
that  year. 


VI  PREFACE. 

out  the  special  circvimstances  under  which  some  of 
the  papers  were  written ;  in  others  the  nature  of 
the  evidence  I  have  found  as  to  the  indisputable 
authorship. 

My  special  opportunities,  derived  from  constant 
companionship  and  the  continuous  discussion  with  De 
QuiNCEY  of  matters  concerning  his  writings,  gave  me 
the  key  to  some  of  the  admirable  papers  here  reprinted. 
It  also  entitles  me  to  say,  that  he  would  have  included 
a  number  of  them  in  his  Collected  Works  alongside 
the  Suspiria  de  Profundis  (Sighs  from  the  Depths), 
had  he  lived  to  continue  his  labours. 

When  we  find  that  most  part  of  the  Susjnria — per- 
haps the  highest  reach  of  his  intellect  in  impassioned 
power — did  not  appear  in  the  Selections  at  all,  the 
reader  will  at  once  understand  that,  in  the  Author's 
own  opinion,  the  Essays  and  Stories  now  first  collected, 
were  neither  less  dignified  in  purpose  nor  less  finished 
in  style  than  those  which  had  passed  under  his  hand 
in  the  fourteen  volumes  he  nearly  completed.  Rather 
like  the  Susjnria,  some  of  these  papers  were  reserved 
as  material  upon  the  revision  of  which  his  energy 
might  be  fitly  bestowed  when  health  would  permit. 


The  interesting  papers  which  appeai^ed  in  Tait^s 
Magazine  are  all  duly  vouched  for  in  that  periodical. 
I  have  not  touched  any  of  the  autobiographical  matter 
which  appeared  in  Tait, — ^the  Avithor  having  recast 
that  as  well  as  the  Shetches  from  CMldJiood,  published 
in  The  Instructor  in  the  'Autobiographic  Sketches' 


PREFACE.  vn 

with  which  he  opened  the  Selections.  The  Casuistry 
of  Duelling,  indeed,  appeared  in  Tait  as  part  of  the 
Autobiographic  Series,  but,  practically,  it  stood  as  an 
independent  paper.  The  touching  personal  passage 
in  this  article  reveals  the  misery  caused  by  the 
unbridled  scurrility  of  certain  notorious  publications 
of  the  last  generation. 

The  paper  on  The  German  Langiuige  appeared  in 
Tait  in  June  1836,  and  the  Brief  Ajypraisal  of  Greek 
Literature  in  December  1838  and  June  1839. 


Two  long  and  valuable  papers  on  Education ; 
Plans  for  th".  Instruction  of  Boys  in  Large  Numbers, 
which  appeared  in  The  London  Ulagazine  for  April 
and  May,  1824,  were  duly  authenticated  by  the 
following  characteristic  letter  from  De  Quixcey  to 
Christopher  North.  It  appears  in  Professor  Wilson's 
Life,  written  by  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Gordox  : — 

'London,  Thursday,  February  24iA,  1825. 

*  My  dear  Wilson, 

'  I  write  to  you  on  the  following  occasion  : — 
Some  time  ago,  perhaps  nearly  two  years  ago,  Mr. 
Hill,  a  lawyer,  published  a  book  on  Education,  detail- 
ing a  plan  on  which  his  brothers  had  established  a 
school  at  Hazlewood,  in  "Warwickshire.  This  book  I 
reviewed  in  the  London  Magazine,  and  in  consequence 
received  a  letter  of  thanks  from  the  Author,  who,  on 
my  coming  to  London  about  midsummer  last  year, 
called  on  me,     I  have  since  become  intimate  with 


VIU  PREFACE. 

him,  and,  excepting  that  he  is  a  sad  Jacobin  (as  I  am 
obliged  to  tell  him  once  or  twice  a  month),  I  have 
no  one  fault  to  find  with  him,  for  he  is  a  very  clever, 
amiable,  good  creature  as  ever  existed ;  and  in  particu- 
lar directions  his  abilities  strike  me  as  really  very 
great  indeed.  Well,  his  book  has  just  been  reviewed 
in  the  last  Edinburgh  Review  (of  which  some  copies 
have  been  in  town  about  a  week).  This  service  has 
been  done  him,  I  suppose,  through  some  of  his  political 
friends — (for  he  is  connected  with  Brougham,  Lord 
Lansdowne,  old  Bentham,  etc.), — but  I  understand 
hy  Mr.  Jeffrey,  Mr.  Hill,  in  common  with  multi- 
tudes in  this  Babylon — who  will  not  put  their  trust 
in  Blackwood  as  in  God  (which,  you  know,  he  ought 
to  do) — yet  privately  adores  him  as  the  Devil ;  and 
indeed  publicly  too,  is  a  great  irroneur  of  Blackwood. 
For,  in  spite  of  his  Jacobinism,  he  is  liberal  and 
inevitably  just  to  real  wit.  His  fear  is — that  Black- 
wood may  come  as  Nemesis,  and  compel  him  to 
regorge  any  puffing  and  cramming  which  Tiff  has 
put  into  his  pocket,  and  is  earnest  to  have  a  letter 
addressed  in  an  influential  quarter  to  prevent  this. 
I  alleged  to  him  that  I  am  not  quite  sure  but  it  is  an 
affront  to  a,  Professor  to  presume  that  he  has  any 
connection  as  contributor,  or  anything  else,  to  any 
work  which  he  does  not  publicly  avow  as  his  organ 
for  communicating  with  the  woi"ld  of  letters.  He 
answers  that  it  would  be  so  in  him, — but  that  an  old 
friend  may  write  suh  rosa.  I  rejoin  that  I  know  not 
but  you  may  have  cut  Blackwood — even  as  a  sub- 


PBEFACE.  IX 

scriber— a  whole  lustrum  ago.  He  rebuts,  by  urging 
a  just  compliment  paid  to  you,  as  a  supposed  con- 
tributor, in  the  Neios  of  Literature  and  Fashion,  but 
a  moon  or  two  ago.  Seriously,  I  have  told  him  that 
I  know  not  what  was  the  extent  of  your  connection 
with  Blackwood  at  any  time ;  and  that  I  conceive 
the  labours  of  your  Chair  in  the  University  must 
now  leave  you  little  leisure  for  any  but  occasional 
contributions,  and  therefore  for  no  regular  cognizance 
of  the  work  as  director,  etc.  However,  as  all  that 
he  wishes — is  simply  an  interference  to  save  him  from 
any  very  severe  article,  and  not  an  article  in  his 
favour,  I  have  ventvired  to  ask  of  you  if  you  hear 
of  any  such  thing,  to  use  such  influence  as  must 
naturally  belong  to  you  in  your  general  character 
(whether  maintaining  any  connection  with  Black- 
wood or  not)  to  get  it  softened.  On  the  whole,  I 
suppose  no  such  article  is  likely  to  appear.  But  to 
oblige  Hill  I  make  the  application.  He  has  no  direct 
interest  in  the  prosjterity  of  Hazlewood;  he  is  himself 
a  bari-ister  in  considerable  practice,  and  of  some 
standing,  I  believe ;  bvit  he  takes  a  strong  paternal 
interest  in  it,  all  his  brothers  (who  are  accomplished 
young  men,  I  believe)  being  engaged  in  it.  They 
have  already  had  one  shock  to  stand  :  a  certain  Mr. 
Place,  a  Jacobin  friend  of  the  School  till  just  now, 
having  taken  the  pet  with  it — and  removed  his  sons. 
Kow  this  Mr.  Place,  who  was  formerly  a  tailor — 
leather-breeches  maker  and  habit-maker, — having 
made  a  fortune  and  finished  his  studies, — is  become 


X  PREFACE. 

an  immense  authority  as  a  political  and  reforming 
head  with  Bentham,  etc.,  as  also  with  the  Westminster 
Review,  in  which  quarter  he  is  supposed  to  have  the 
weight  of  nine  times  nine  men  ;  whence,  by  the  way, 
in  the  "  circles  "  of  the  booksellers,  the  Review  has 
got  the  xianiQ  oi  t\\Q  Breeches  Review.^  *  *  *  [The 
writer  then  passes  on  to  details  of  his  own  plans  and 
prospects,  and  thus  concludes.] 

'  I  beg  my  kind  regards  to  Mrs.  Wilson  and  my 
young  friends,  whom  I  remember  with  so  much 
interest  as  I  last  saw  them  at  EUeray. — I  am,  my 
dear  Wilson, 

'  Very  affectionately  yours, 

'Thomas  De  Quincey.' 


In  approaching  the  consideration  of  other  papers 
said,  in  various  quarters  (with  some  show  of  atithority) 
to  have  been  written  by  De  Quincey,  it  was  necessary 
to  act  with  extreme  care.  One  was  a  painstaking 
list  on  the  whole,  but  very  inaccurate  as  regards 
certain  contributions  attributed  to  De  Quincey  in 
Blackwood.  I  have  had  the  kind  aid  of  Messrs. 
Blackwood  in  examining  the  archives  of  Maga  to 
settle  the  points  in  question. 

I  was  puzzled  by  some  papers  in  The  London 
Magazine  set  down  as  De  Quincey's  contributions 
in  a  memorandum  said  to  have  been  furnished  by 
Messrs.  Taylor  and  Hessey,  its  Publishers.  The 
Blaclaoood  blunder's  made  me  very  sceptical.     There 


PREFACE.  XI 

was  one  story  in  particular — the  long  droll  one 
of  Mr.  SchnacJcenberger ;  or,  Two  Masters  to  one 
Dog,  about  which  I  remained  in  doubt. 

I  had  a  faint  recollection  that  one  day  De  Quin'CEY 
dwelt  on  the  merits  of  '  Juno,'  and  owned  the  story 
when  he  was  discussing  'bull-dogs.' 

By  the  way,  he  was  rather  fond  of  *  bull-dogs,' 
and  had  some  good  anecdotes  about  them.  It  was  a 
kind  of  pet-admiration-horror  which  he  shared  with 
SouTHEY,  on  account  of  the  difficulty  in  making  a 
well-bred  bull-dog  relax  his  grip.  Some  member  of 
the  canine  '  fancy  '  down  at  the  Lakes  had  given  them 
a  so-called  infallible  '  tip '  for  making  a  bull-dog  let 
go.  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  have  quite  forgotten  this 
admirable  receipt.  To  be  sure,  one  ought  never  to 
forget  such  valuable  pieces  of  information.  So  I 
thought  one  day  lately  before  the  muzzling  order 
came  into  force,  when  a  bloodthirsty  monster, — a  big, 
white  bull-dog,  sprang  suddenly  at  me  in  Cleveland 
Gardens.  Instantly  there  flashed  the  thought — 
what  was  it  that  De  Quincey  recommended  ?  A 
lucky  lunge  which  drove  the  ferule  of  my  umbrella 
down  the  brute's  throat  fortunately  created  a 
diversion,  and  allowed  a  little  more  time  for  the 
study  of  the  problem.  Perhaps  I  will  be  pardoned 
this  digression,  as  it  affords  an  opportunity  of  recoi'd- 
ing  the  fact  that  De  Quincey  and  Soutiiey  both 
looked  up  to  the  bull-dog  as  an  animal  of  very 
decided  'character.' 

I  was  loth  to  abandon    Mr.   Schnackenberger,   but 


Xll  PREFACE. 

unwilling  to  lean  too  much  on  my  somewhat 
hazy  remembrance.  It  seemed  almost  hopeless  to 
obtain  the  necessary  evidence.  Messrs.  Taylor  and 
Hessey  were  long  dead,  and  after  groping  about  like 
a  detective,  no  one  could  tell  me  what  had  become 
of  the  records  of  The  London  Magazine.  Suddenly 
there  came  light  in  October  last.  I  ascertained  that  a 
son  of  one  of  the  Publishers  is  the  Archdeacon  of 
Middlesex,  the  Venerable  J.  A.  Hessey,  D.C.L. 

I  stated  the  case,  and  the  worthy  Archdeacon 
came  most  kindly  and  promptly  to  my  assistance. 
As  a  boy  he  remembered  De  Quincey  at  his 
father's  house,  and  recollected  very  well  reading  Mr. 
Schnackenherger.  He  informed  me,  '  I  was  greatly 
interested  in  the  [London]  Magazine  generally,  so 
much  so,  that,  at  my  father's  request,  I  copied  from 
his  private  list,  and  attached  to  the  head  of  each 
paper  the  name  of  the  Author,  .  .  This  interesting 
set  came  to  me  at  my  father's  death.' 

Dr.  Hessey  had  subsequently  presented  the  series 
to  his  old  pupil,  Mr.  "William  Carevv  Hazlitt  (by 
whose  courtesy  I  have  been  able  to  examine  it) — *  the 
grandson  of  William  Hazlitt,  who  was  a  frequent 
writer  in  the  Magazine,  and  an  old  friend  of  my 
father.  I  thought  he  woidd  like  to  possess  it,  and 
that  it  would  thus  be  in  fitting  hands.  I  should  not 
have  parted  with  it  in  favour  of  any  but  a  man  like 
Mr.  Hazlitt,  who  was  sure  to  value  it.' 

As  these  valuable  annotations  of  the  Archdeacon 
ramify  in  various  directions — touching  as  they  do  the 


PREFACE.  XIU 

contributions  of  many  brilliant  men  of  that  pei-iod — it 
may  not  be  amiss  (as  a  possible  help  to  others  in 
the  future)  to  add  a  few  more  decisive  words  by 
Dr.  Hessey  : — 

*  If  any  papers  are  not  marked  (he  refers  only  to 
those  volumes  actually  published  by  Messrs.  Taylor 
and  Hessey)  it  was  because  they  were  anonymous, 
or  because,  from  some  inadvertency,  they  were  not 
assigned  in  my  father's  list.  So  far  as  the  record  goes, 
it  may  he  dejyended  upon.^ 

By  its  help  I  was  able  to  fix  the  authorship  by 
De  Quincey  of  (1)  The  Dog  Story — translated  from 
the  German,  (2)  Moral  Effects  of  devolutions,  (3) 
Prefigurations  of  Remote  Events,  (4)  Alstract  of 
Svjedenborgianism  hy  Immannel  Kant. 


Another  perplexing  element  was  the  letter  wi-itten 
by  De  Quincey  to  his  uncle,  Colonel  Penson,  in 
1819  (Page's  Life,  vol.  i.  p.  207),  wherein  reference 
is  made  to  certain  contributions  to  Blackwood's 
Magazine   and   The    Quarterly  Review. 

The  archives  of  Maga  I  find  go  back  only  as  far 
as  1825.  As  to  The  Quarterly  Review,  I  have  Mr. 
Murray's  authority  for  stating  that  De  Quincey 
never  wrote  a  line  in  it.  "Whether  any  conti'ibutions 
were  ever  commissioned,  paid  for,  and  afterwards 
suppressed,  I  have  been  unable  to  ascertain.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  Schiller  Series  referred  to  in  the 
letter  to  Colonel  Penson  was  never  reviewed  in 
The   Quarterly  at  all. 


XIV  PEEFACE, 

De  Quincey  as  a  Newspaper  Editoi'  forms  the 
subject  of  a  Chapter  in  Page's  Life.  Sonie  extracts 
are  there  given  from  cuttings  out  of  The  Westmorland 
Gazette  found  amongst  the  Author's  Papers.  This 
editorship  (1818-19)  was  of  short  duration,  and  pur- 
sued under  hostile  circumstances,  such  as  distance 
from  the  Press,  &c.,  which  soon  led  to  De  Quincey's 
resignation.  I  had  hoped  to  add  some  further  speci- 
mens of  the  newspaper  work,  but  have  not,  as  yet, 
obtained  access  to  a  file  of  the  period.  In  any 
future  edition  I  may  be  able  to  add  this  in  an 
Appendix. 

The  Love-Charm.  —  In  spite  of  the  marvellous 
tenacity  of  Db  Quincey's  memory,  even  as  to  the 
very  words  of  a  passage  in  an  Author  which  he 
had,  perhaps,  only  once  read,  there  were  blanks 
■which  confounded  himself.  One  of  these  bore  on 
his  contributions  to  Knight's  Quarterly  Magazine. 
Mr.  Fields  had  been  so  generally  careful  in  obtain- 
ing sufficient  authority  for  what  he  published, 
in  the  original  American  edition,  that  De  Quincey 
good-humouredly  gave  the  verdict  against  himself, 
and  '  supposed  he  must  be  wrong '  in  thinking  that 
some  of  these  special  papers  were  not  from  his  pen. 
Still, — he  demurred,'  and  before  including  them  in 
The  Selections  Grave  and  Gay,  it  was  resolved  to 
institute  an  inquiry.  Accordingly,  about  1852,  I 
was  deputed  to  interview  Mr.  Charles  Knight, 
and  request  his  aid.     My  mission  was  to  obtain,  if 


PRKFACE,  XV 

possible,  a  correct  list  of  the  various  contributions  to 
the  Quarterly  Magazine,  including  this  Love-Charm. 

Mr.  Knight,  Mr.  Ramsay  (his  first  lieutenant,  as  he 
called  him),  and  myself  all  met  at  Fleet  Street,  where 
we  had  the  archives  of  the  old  Quarterly  Magazine 
turned  up,  and  a  list  checked.  I  lately  found  this 
particular  story  also  referred  to  circumstantially  in 
the  annexed  paragraph  contained  in  Charles  Knight's 
Passages  of  a  Working  Life  (Thorne's  re-issue,  vol.  I. 
chap.  X.  p.  339). 

^  'De  Quincey  had  written  to  me  in  December  1824, 
in  the  belief  that,  as  he  expressed  it,  "  many  of  your 
friends  will  rally  about  you,  and  urge  you  to  some  new 
undertaking  of  the  same  kind.  If  that  should  happen, 
I  beg  to  say,  that  you  may  count  upon  me,  as  one  of 
your  men,  for  any  extent  of  labour,  to  the  best  of  my 
power,  which  you  may  choose  to  command."  He  wrote 
a  translation  of  The  Love-Charm  of  Tieck,  with  a 
notice  of  the  Author.  Tliis  is  not  rejjrinted  in  his 
Collected  Works,  thovigh  perhaps  it  is  the  most  in- 
teresting of  his  translations  from  the  German.  In 
this  spring  and  summer  De  Quincey  and  I  were  in 
intimate  companionship.  It  was  a  pleasant  time  of 
intellectual  intercourse  for  me.' 

There  is  no  doubt  The  Love-Charm  would  have  been 
reprinted  had  the  Author  lived  to  carry  the  Selections 
farther. 

The  curious  little  Essay  On  Xovels, — written  in  a 
Lady's  Album,  had  passed  out  of  Mr.  Davey's  hands 


XVI  PREFACE, 

before  I  became  aware  of  its  existence.  The  fac- 
simile, however,  taken  for  The  Archivist,  by  an  expert 
like  Mr.  Netherclift,  shows  that  it  is,  unquestion- 
ably, in  the  handwriting  of  De  Quincey.  I  have 
been  unable  to  trace  the  '  Fair  Incogxita  '  to  whom 
it  was  addressed. 


The  compositions  which  were  written  for  me  when 
I  edited  Titan,  and  which  I  now  place  before  the 
public  in  volume  form,  after  the  lapse  of  a  whole 
generation  (thirty-three  years,  to  speak  '  by  the  cai-d  '), 
demand  some  special  comment,  particularly  in  their 
relation  to  the  Selections  Grave  and  Gay. 

Titan  was  a  half-crown  monthly  Magazine,  a  con- 
tinuation in  an  enlarged  form  of  Tlie  Instructor.  I 
had  become  the  acting  Editor  of  its  predecessor,  the 
New  Series  of  The  Instructor,  working  in  concert  with 
my  Father,  the  proprietor.  In  this  New  Series  there 
appeared  from  De  Quincey's  pen  The  Sphinx's  Riddle, 
Judas  Iscariot,  the  Series  of  Sketches  from  Childhood, 
and  other  notable  papers. 

At  that  time  I  was  but  a  young  editor — young 
and,  perhaps,  a  little  '  curly,'  as  Lord  Beaconsfielb 
put  it.  De  Quincey,  with  a  truly  paternal  solicitude, 
gave  me  much  good  advice  and  valuable  help,  both 
in  the  selection  of  subjects  for  the  Magazine  and 
in  the  mode  of  handling  them.  The  notes  on  The 
Lake  Dialect,  Shakspere's  Text  and  Suetonius  Un- 
ravelled, were  written  to  me  in  the  form  of  Letters, 
and  published  in  Titan. 


PREFACE.  XVU 

Storms  in  English  History  was  a  consideration  of 
part  of  Mr.  Froude's  well-known  book,  which  on  its 
publication  made  a  great  stir  in  the  literary  world, 
and  profoundly  impressed  De  Quincey. 

How  to  write  English  was  the  first  of  a  series  pro- 
jected for  The  Instructor.  It  never  got  beyond  this 
'  Introduction,'  but  the  fragment  contains  some  matter 
well  worthy  of  preservation. 

The  circumstances  attending  the  composition  of  the 
four  papers  on  The  English  in  India  and  Tlie  English 
in  China  I  have  explained  at  some  length  in  the 
introductory  notices  attached  to  them. 

And  now  for  a  confession  !  The  '  gentle  reader  ' 
may,  perhaps,  feel  a  momentary  inclination  to  blame 
me  when  I  reveal,  that  I  rather  stood  in  the  way 
of  some  brilliant  articles  which  were  very  seriously 
considered  at  this  period. 

De  Quincey  was  eager  to  write  them,  and  I  should 
have  been  glad  indeed  to  have  had  them  for  Titan, 
but  for  a  fear  of  allowing  the  Author  to  wander  too 
far  from  the  ever-present  and  irksome  Works.  Any 
possible  escape — even  through  other  downright  hard 
work,  from  this  perplexing  labour  was  joyfully  hailed 
by  him  as  a  hopeful  chance  of  obtaining  a  prosperous 
holiday. 

For  a  little  I  wavered  under  the  temptation  (Reader, 
— was  it  not  great]) — the  idea  of  having  a  little 
relaxation  which  would  permit  some,  at  least,  of 
these  well-planned  papers  to  be  written.  But  I  was 
keenly  alive  to  the  danger  which  overtook  us  at  last. 

VOL.   I.  B 


We  are  daily  reminded  that  *  art  is  long  and  life  is 
short.'  I  had  already  saved  the  Works  from  being 
strangled  at  their  birth  in  a  legal  tussle  with  Mr. 
John  Taylor.*  My  Father  was  at  my  elbow  anxiously 
inquiring  about  the  progress  of  the  '  copy '  for  each 
succeeding  volume.  There  were  eager  friends  also,  on 
both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  pressing  resolutely  for  it. 
So — prudence  prevailed,  and  we  held  as  straightly 
on  our  way  as  the  Author's  uncertain  health  would 
permit. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass,  dear  Public,  that  you  lost 
some  charming  essays,  while  you  gained  the  fourteen 
volumes  of  the  /Selections  which  the  Author  all  but 
completed. 

Wherefore,  seeing  that  you  may  possibly  expect  it 
of  me  to  make  some  use  of  my  rare  opportunities  by 
doing  whatever  I  can  in  these  matters,  '  before  the 
night  cometh,' — I  have  prepared  this  book — ohne 
hast,  ohne  rast. 

I  cannot  close  these  few  pages  better  than  by 
quoting  some  strong,  just,  sympathetic  words  which 
appeared  in  two  great  reviews — one  American,  the 
other  British. 

The  North  American  Review  said  : — 

'In  De  Quincey  we  are  struck  at  once  by  the 
exquisite  refinement  of  mind,  the  subtleness  of  as- 
sociation, and  the  extreme  tenuity  of  the  threads  of 

*  This  incident  was  a  complicated  contention,  concerning  the 
copyright  of  The  Cojifcssion-i,  in  wliich  De  Quincey  had  long 
allowed  his  rights  to  lie  dormant.  It  was  at  last  happily  settled 
in  an  amicable  manner. 


PREFACE.  XIX 

thought,  the  gossamer  filaments  yet  finally  weaving 
themselves  together,  and  thickening  imperceptibly 
into  a  strong  and  expanded  web.  Mingled  with  this, 
and  perhaps  springing  from  a  similar  mental  habit, 
is  an  occasional  dreaminess  both  in  speculation  and 
in  narrative,  when  the  mind  seems  to  move  vaguely 
round  in  vast  returning  circles.  The  thoughts  catch 
hold  of  nothing,  but  are  heaved  and  tossed  like 
masses  of  cloud  by  the  wind.  An  incident  of  trivial 
import  is  turned  and  tui'ned  to  catch  the  light  of 
every  possible  consequence,  and  so  magnified  as  to 
become  portentous  and  terrible.' 

***** 

'  A  barren  and  trivial  fact,  under  the  power  of 
that  life-giving  hand,  shoots  out  on  all  sides  into 
waving  branches  and  green  leaves,  and  odoriferous 
flowers.  It  is  not  the  fact  that  interests  us,  but  the 
mind  working  upon  it,  investing  it  with  mock-heroic 
dignity,  or  rendering  it  illustrative  of  really  serious 
principles ;  or,  with  the  true  insight  of  geniu>,  dis- 
covering, in  that  which  a  vulgar  eye  would  despise, 
the  germs  of  grandeur  and  beauty ;  the  passions  of 
war  in  the  contests  of  the  rival  factions  of  schoolboys, 
the  tragedy  in  every  peasant's  death-bed.' 

***** 

*  De  Quincey  constantly  amazes  us  by  the  amount 
and  diversity  of  his  learning.  Two  or  three  of  the 
minor  papers  in  the  collected  volumes  are  absolutely 
loaded  with  the  life  spoils  of  their  author's  scholarship, 
yet  carry  their  burden  as  lightly  as  our  bodies  sustain 


XX  PREFACE. 

the  weight  of  the  ch'cumambient  atmosphere.  So 
perfect  is  his  tact  in  finding,  or  rather  making  a  place 
for  everything,  that,  while  inviting,  he  eludes  the 
charge  of  pedantry.' 

^  ^  ^  ^  ^ 

'  *  It  is  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  one  who 
tries  his  hand  at  so  many  kinds  of  pencraft  should 
always  excel ;  yet  such  is  the  force  of  De  Quincey's 
intellect,  the  brilliancy  of  his  imagination,  and  the 
charm  of  his  style,  that  he  throws  a  new  and  peculiar 
interest  over  every  subject  which  he  discusses,  while 
his  fictitious  narratives  in  general  rivet  the  attention 
of  the  reader  with  a  power  not  easily  resisted.' 

The  Quarterly  Review  said  : — 

'  De  Quincey's  style  is  superb,  his  powers  of  rea- 
soning unsurpassed,  his  imagination  is  warm  and 
brilliant,  and  his  humour  both  masculine  and  delicate.' 

The  writer  continues  : — 

'  A  great  master  of  English  composition,  a  ci'itic  of 
uncommon  delicacy,  an  honest  and  unflinching  inves- 
tigator of  received  opinions,  a  philosophic  inquirer — • 
De  Quincey  has  departed  from  us  full  of  years,  and 
left  no  successor  to  his  i-ank.  The  exquisite  finish  of 
his  style,  with  the  scholastic  vigour  of  his  logic,  form 
a  combination  which  centuries  may  never  reproduce, 
but  which  every  generation  should  study  as  one  of 
the  marvels  of  English  Literature.' 

James  Hogg. 

London,  February,  1890. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PREFACE    ...              ...             ...              ...              ...  ...             V 

A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE 

IN    ITS    FOREMOST    PRETENSIONS          ...  ...          23 

THE     GERMAN      LANGUAGE,    AND     PHILOSOPHY      OF 

KANT                  ...              ...              ...              ...  ...          91 

MORAL    EFFECTS    OF    REVOLUTIONS                 ...  ...        130 

PREFIGURATIONS    OF    REMOTE    EVENTS        ...  ...        132 

MEASURE    OF    VALUE             ...              ...              ...  ...        134 

LETTER    IN    REPLY    TO    HAZLITT    CONCERNING    THE 

MALTHUSIAN    DOCTRINE    OF    POPULATION  ...        141 

THE    SERVICES    OF    MR.    RICARDO    TO    THE    SCIENCE 

OF    POLITICAL    ECONOMY          ...              ...  ...        154 

EDUCATION,    AND    CASE    OF    APPEAL              ...  ...        160 

ABSTRACT    OF    SWEDENBORGIANISM                ...  ...       215 

SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON 

THE   LAKE   DIALECT 

STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY 

THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA    ... 

ON    NOVELS    (written    IN    A    LADY' 

DE    QUINCE y's    PORTRAIT 


225 

265 

275 

298 

's  album)   ...  354 
357 


A  BRIEF  APPRAISAL  OF  THE  GREEK 
LITERATURE  IX  ITS  FOREMOST  PRE- 
TExXSIONS  : 

By  way  of  Counsel  to  Adults  tvho  are  hesitating  as  to  the  Pro- 
priety of  Studying  the  Greek  Language  with  a  vieiu  to  the 
Literature  ;  and  by  way  of  consolation  to  those  whom  circum- 
stances have  obliged  to  lay  aside  that  plan. 

No.  I. 

No  question  has  been  coming  up  at  intervals  for 
reconsideration  more  frequently  than  that  which 
respects  the  comparative  pretensions  of  Pagan  (viz. 
Greek  and  Roman)  Literature  on  the  one  side,  aud 
Modern  (that  is,  the  Litei'ature  of  Christendom)  ou 
the  other.  Being  brought  uniformly  before  uujust 
tribunals — that  is,  tribunals  corrupted  and  bribed  by 
their  own  vanity — it  is  not  wonderful  that  this  great 
question  should  have  been  stifled  and  overlaid  witli 
peremptory  decrees,  dogmatically  cutting  the  knot 
rather  than  skilfully  untying  it,  as  often  as  it  has 
been  moved  afresh,  and  put  upon  the  roll  for  a  re- 
hearing. It  is  no  mystery  to  those  who  are  in  the 
secret,  and  who  can  lay  A  and  B  together,  why  it 
should  have  happened  that  the  most  interesting  of  all 
literary  questions,  and  the  most  comprehensive  (for 


24  DE    QUINCEY. 

it  includes  most  others,  and  some  special  to  itself), 
has,  in  the  first  place,  never  been  pleaded  in  a  style 
of  dignity,  of  philosophic  precision,  of  feeling,  or  of 
research,  pi"oportioned  to  its  own  merits,  and  to  the 
numerous  '  issues '  (forensically  speaking)  depending 
upon  it ;  nor,  in  the  second  place,  has  ever  received 
such  an  adjvidication  as  was  satisfactory  even  at  the 
moment.  For,  be  it  remembered,  after  all,  that  any 
provisional  adjudication — one  growing  out  of  the 
fashion  or  taste  of  a  single  era — could  not,  at  any 
rate,  be  binding  for  a  different  era.  A  judgment 
which  met  the  approbation  of  Spenser  could  hardly 
have  satisfied  Dryden ;  nor  another  which  satisfied 
Pope,  have  been  recognised  as  authentic  by  us  of  the 
year  1838.  It  is  the  normal  or  exemplary  condition 
of  the  human  mind,  its  ideal  condition,  not  its  ab- 
normal condition,  as  seen  in  the  transitory  modes  and 
fashions  of  its  taste  or  its  opinions,  which  only 

'  Can  lay  great  bases  for  eternity, ' 

or  give  even  a  colourable  permanence  to  any  decision 
in  a  matter  so  large,  so  perplexed,  so  profound,  as 
this  great  pending  suit  between  antiquity  and  our- 
selves— between  the  junior  men  of  this  earth  and 
ourselves,  the  seniors,  as  Lord  Bacon  reasonably  calls 
us.  Appeals  will  be  brought  ad  infinitum — we  our- 
selves shall  bring  appeals,  to  set  aside  any  judgment 
that  may  be  given,  until  something  more  is  consulted 
than  individual  taste  ;  better  evidence  brought  for- 
ward than  the  result  of  individual  reading  ;  something 
higher  laid  down  as  the  grounds  of  judgment,  as  the 
very  principles  of  the  jurisprudence  which  controls 
the   court,    than    those    vague    responsa  priulentum, 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     25 

countersigned  by  the  great  name,  perhaps,  of  Aris- 
totle, but  still  too  often  mere  products  of  local  con- 
venience, of  inexperience,  of  experience  too  limited 
and  exclusively  Grecian,  or  of  absolute  caprice — rules, 
in  short,  which  are  themselves  not  less  truly  sub 
judice  and  liable  to  appeal  than  that  very  appeal  cause 
to  "which  they  are  applied  as  decisive. 

We  have  remarked,  that  it  is  no  mystery  why  the 
decision  should  have  gone  pretty  uniformly  in  favour 
of  the  ancients ;  for  here  is  the  dilemma : — A  man, 
attempting  this  problem,  is  or  is  not  a  classical 
scholar.  If  he  is,  then  he  has  already  received  a  bias 
in  his  judgment ;  he  is  a  bribed  man,  bribed  by  his 
vanity ;  and  is  liable  to  be  challenged  as  one  of  the 
judges.  If  he  is  not,  then  he  is  but  imperfectly 
qualiiied — imperfectly  as  respects  his  knowledge  and 
powers ;  whilst,  even  as  respects  his  will  and  aifec- 
tions,  it  may  be  alleged  that  he  also  is  under  a  bias 
and  a  corrupt  influence ;  his  interest  being  no  less 
obvious  to  undervalue  a  literature,  which,  as  to 
hivi,  is  tabooed  and  under  lock  and  key,  than  his 
opponent's  is  to  put  a  preposterous  value  upon  that 
knowledge  which  very  probably  is  the  one  sole 
advantageous  distinction  between  him  and  his 
neighbours. 

We  might  cite  an  illustration  from  the  French 
literary  history  on  this  very  point.  Every  nation  in 
turn  has  had  its  rows  in  this  great  quarrel,  which  is, 
in  fact,  co-extensive  with  the  controversies  upon 
human  nature  itself.  The  French,  of  course,  have 
had  theirs — solemn  tournaments,  single  duels,  casual 
'  turn-ups,'  and  regular  '  stand-up  '  fights.  The  most 
celebrated  of  these  was  in  the  beginning  of  the  last 


26  DE    QUINCEY. 

century,  when,  amongst  others  who  acted  as  bottle- 
holders,  umpires,  &c.,  two  champions  in  particular 
'  peeled  '  and  fought  a  considerable  number  of  rounds, 
mutually  administering  severe  punishment,  and  both 
coming  out  of  the  ring  disfigured  :  these  were  M.  la 
Motte  and  Madame  Dacier.  But  Motte  was  the 
favourite  at  first,  and  once  he  got  Dacier  '  into 
chancery,'  and  *  fibbed '  her  twice  round  the  ropes,  so 
that  she  became  a  truly  pitiable  and  delightful  spec- 
tacle to  the  connoisseurs  in  fibbing  and  bloodshed. 
But  here  lay  the  difference  :  Motte  was  a  hard  hitter  ; 
he  was  a  clever  man,  and  (which  all  clever  men  are 
not)  a  man  of  sense ;  but,  like  Shakspeare,  he  had  no 
Greek.  On  the  other  hand,  Dacier  had  nothing  hut 
Greek.  A  certain  abbe,  at  that  time,  amused  all 
Paris  with  his  caricatures  of  this  Madame  Dacier, 
'  who,'  said  he,  *  ought  to  be  cooking  her  husband's 
dinner,  and  darning  his  stockings,  instead  of  skir- 
mishing and  tilting  with  Grecian  spears ;  for,  be  it 
known  that,  after  all  her  not  cooking  and  her  not 
darning,  she  is  as  poor  a  scholar  as  her  injured  hus- 
band is  a  good  one.'  And  there  the  abbe  was  right ; 
witness  the  husband's  Horace,  in  9  vols.,  against  the 
wife's  Homer.  However,  this  was  not  generally  un- 
derstood. The  lady,  it  was  believed,  waded  petticoat- 
deep  in  Greek  clover ;  and  in  any  Grecian  field  of 
dispute,  naturally  she  must  be  in  the  right,  as  against 
one  who  barely  knew  his  own  language  and  a  little 
Latin.  Motte  was,  therefore,  thought  by  most  people 
to  have  come  off  second  best.  For,  as  soon  as  ever 
he  opened  thus — 'Madame,  it  seems  to  me  that, 
agreeably  to  all  common  sense  or  common  decorum, 
the  Greek  poet  should  here ' instantly,  without 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     27 

listening  to  his  argument,  the  intrepid  Amazon  re- 
plied (vTTodpa  tSao-a),  '  You  foolish  man  !  you  remark- 
ably silly  man  ! — that  is  because  you  knovsr  no  better  ; 
and  the  reason  you  know  no  better,  is  because  you 
do  not  understand  ton  cV apameihomenos  as  I  do.'  Ton 
d' apameibomenos  fell  like  a  hand-grenade  amongst 
Motte's  papers,  and  blew  him  up  effectually  in  the 
opinion  of  the  multitude.  No  matter  what  he  might 
say  in  reply — no  matter  how  reasonable,  how  unan- 
swerable— that  one  sj^ell  of  '  ISTo  Greek  !  no  Greek  ! ' 
availed  as  a  talisman  to  the  lady  both  for  offence 
and  defence ;  and  refuted  all  syllogisms  and  all  elo- 
quence as  effectually  as  the  cry  of  A  la  lanterne .'  in 
the  same  country  some  fourscore  years  after. 

So  it  will  always  be.  Those  who  (like  Madame 
Dacier)  possess  no  accomplishment  hut  Greek,  will,  of 
necessity,  set  a  superhuman  value  upon  that  liteia- 
ture  in  all  its  parts,  to  which  their  own  narrow  skill 
becomes  an  available  key.  Besides  that,  over  and 
above  this  coarse  and  conscious  motive  for  overrating 
that  which  reacts  with  an  equal  and  answerable 
overrating  upon  their  own  little  philological  attain- 
ments, there  is  another  agency  at  work,  and  quite 
unconsciously  to  the  subjects  of  that  agency,  in  dis- 
turbing the  sanity  of  any  estimate  they  may  make 
of  a  foreign  literature.  It  is  the  habit  (well  known 
to  psychologists)  of  transferring  to  anything  created 
by  our  own  skill,  or  which  reflects  our  own  skill, 
as  if  it  lay  causatively  and  objectively*  in  the  re- 
flecting thing  itself,  that  pleasurable  power  which  in 
very   truth    belongs    subjectively  *   to    the   mind    of 

* — *  Objectively  and  subjectively  are  terms  somewhat  too  meta- 
physical ;    but  they  are  so  indispensable  to  accurate  thinking 


28  DE    QUINCEY, 

him  who  surveys  it,  from  conscious  success  in  the 
exercise  of  his  own  energies.  Hence  it  is  that  we 
see  daily  without  surprise,  young  ladies  hanging 
enamoured  over  the  pages  of  an  Italian  authoi% 
and  calling  attention  to  trivial  commonplaces,  such 
as,  clothed  in  plain  mother  English,  woul  I  have 
been  more  i-epulsive  to  them  than  the  distinctions 
of  a  theologian,  or  the  counsels  of  a  great-grand- 
mother. They  mistake  for  a  pleasure  yielded  by  the 
author,  what  is  in  fact  the  pleasure  attending  their 
own  success  in  mastering  what  was  lately  an  insuper- 
able difficulty. 

It  is  indeed  a  pitiable  spectacle  to  any  man  of  sense 
and  feeling,  who  happens  to  be  really  familiar  with 
the  golden  treasures  of  his  own  ancestral  literature, 
and  a  spectacle  which  moves  alternately  scorn  and 
sorrow,  to  see  young  people  squandering  their  time 
and  painful  study  upon  writers  not  fit  to  unloose  the 
shoes'  latchets  of  many  amongst  their  own  com- 
patriots ;  making  painful  and  remote  voyages  after 
the  drossy  refuse,  when  the  pure  gold  lies  neglected 
at  their  feet.  Too  often  he  is  reminded  of  a  case, 
which  is  still  sometimes  to  be  witnessed  in  London. 
!N^ow  and  then  it  will  happen  that  a  lover  of  art, 
modern  or  antique  alike,  according  to  its  excellence, 
will  find  himself  honoured  by  an  invitation  from  some 
millionnaire,  or  some  towering  grandee,  to  'assist,'  as 
the  phrase  is,  at  the  opening  of  a  case  newly  landed 
from  the  Tiber  or  the  Arno,  and  fraught  (as  he  is 
assured)  with  the  very  gems  of  Italian  art,  inter- 
that  we  are  inclined  to  show  them  some  indulgence  ;  and,  the 
more  so,  in  cases  where  the  mere  position  and  connection  of  the 
words  are  half  sufficient  to  explain  their  application. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     29 

mingled  besides  with  many  genuine  antiques.  He 
goes  :  the  cases  are  solemnly  disgorged ;  adulatory 
hangers  on,  calling  themselves  artists,  and,  at  all 
events,  so  much  so  as  to  appreciate  the  solemn  farce 
enacted,  stand  by  uttering  hollow  applauses  of  my 
Lord's  taste,  and  endeavouring  to  play  upon  the 
tinkling  cymbals  of  spurious  enthusiasm :  whilst 
every  man  of  real  discernment  perceives  at  a  glance 
the  mere  refuse  and  sweeping  of  a  third-rate  studio, 
such  as  many  a  native  artist  would  disdain  t-o  turn 
out  of  his  hands  ;  and  antiques  such  as  could  be  pro- 
duced, with  a  month's  notice,  by  cart-loads,  in  many 
an  obscure  corner  of  London.  Yet  for  this  rubbish 
has  the  great  man  taken  a  painful  tour ;  compassed 
land  and  sea ;  paid  away  in  exchange  a  king's 
ransom ;  and  claims  now  on  their  behalf,  the  very 
humblest  homage  of  artists  who  are  taxed  with  the 
basest  envy  if  they  refuse  it,  and  w^ho,  meantime, 
cannot  in  sincerity  look  upon  the  trumpery  with 
other  feelings  than  such  as  the  potter's  wheel,  if  (like 
Ezekiel's  wheels)  it  were  instinct  with  spirit,  would 
entertain  for  the  vilest  of  its  own  creations — culinary 
or  'post-culinary'  mugs  and  jugs.  We,  the  writers 
of  this  paper,  are  not  artists,  are  not  connected  with 
artists.  And  yet,  upon  the  general  principle  of  sym- 
pathy with  native  merit,  and  of  disgust  towards  all 
affectation,  we  cannot  but  recall  such  anecdotes  with 
scorn ;  and  often  we  recollect  the  stories  recorded  by 
poor  Benvenuto  Cellini,  that  dissolute  but  brilliant 
vagabond,  who  (like  our  own  British  artists)  was  some- 
times upbraided  with  the  degeneracy  of  modern  art, 
and,  upon  his  hvmibly  requesting  some  evidence,  re- 
ceived, by  way  of  practical  answer,  a  sculptured  gem 


30  DE    QUINCEV. 

or  vase,  perhaps  with  a  scornful  demand  of — when 
wou'd  he  be  able  to  produce  anything  like  that — 'eh, 
Master  Ben?  Fancy  we  must  wait  a  few  centuries 
or  so,  befox-e  you'll  be  ready  with  the  fellow  of  this.' 
And,  lo  !  on  looking  into  some  hidden  angle  of  the 
beautiful  production,  poor  Cellini  discovered  his  own 
private  mark,  the  supposed  antique  having  been  a 
pure  forgery  of  his  own.  Such  cases  remind  one  too 
forcibly  of  the  pretty  Horatian  tale,  where,  in  a  con- 
test between  two  men  who  undertake  to  mimic  a  pig's 
grunting,  he  who  happens  to  be  the  favourite  of  the 
audience  is  applauded  to  the  echo  for  his  felicitous 
execution,  and  repeatedly  encored,  whilst  the  other  man 
is  hissed  off  the  stage,  and  well  kicked  by  a  band  of 
amateurs  and  cognoscenti,  as  a  poor  miserable  copyist 
and  impostor  j  but,  unfortunately  for  the  credit  of  his 
exploders,  he  has  just  time,  before  they  have  quite 
kicked  him  off,  for  exposing  to  view  the  real  pig  con- 
cealed under  his  cloak,  which  pig  it  was,  and  not 
himself,  that  had  been  the  artist — forced  by  pinches 
into  *  mimicry '  of  his  own  porcine  music.  Of  all 
baffled  connoisseurs,  surely  these  Roman  pig-fanciers 
must  have  looked  the  most  confounded.  Yet  there 
is  no  knowing :  and  we  ourselves  have  a  clever  friend, 
but  rather  too  given  to  subtilising,  who  contends, 
upon  some  argument  not  perfectly  intelligible  to  us, 
that  Horace  was  not  so  conclusive  in  his  logic  as  he 
fancied ;  that  the  real  pig  might  not  have  ah  '  ideal ' 
or  normal  squeak,  biit  a  peculiar  and  non-repi-esent- 
ative  squeak ;  and  that,  after  all,  the  man  might 
deserve  the  '  threshing '  he  got.  Well,  it  may  be  so  ; 
but,  however,  the  Roman  audience,  wrong  or  not,  for 
once  fancied  themselves  in  the  wrong ;  and  we  cannot 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     31 

but  regret  that  our  own  ungenerous  disparngers  of 
native  merit,  and  exclusive  eulogisers  of  the  dead  or 
the  alien — of  those  only  '  quos  Libitina  sacravit,^  or 
whoni  oceans  divide  from  us — are  not  now  and  then 
open  to  the  same  jxdj^ahle  refutation,  as  they  are  cer- 
tainly guilty  of  the  same  mean  error,  in  prejudging 
the  whole  question,  and  refusing  to  listen  even  to  the 
plain  evidence  of  their  own  feelings,  or,  in  some  cases, 
to  the  voice  of  their  own  senses. 

From  this  preface  it  is  already  abundantly  clear 
what  side  we  take  in  this  dispute  about  modern  liter- 
ature and  the  antique.*  And  we  now  propose  to 
justify  our  leaning  by  a  general  review  of  the  Pagan 
authors,  in  their  elder  section — that  is,  the  Grecians. 
These  will  be  enough  in  all  conscience,  for  one  essay ; 
and  even  for  them  we  meditate  a  very  cursory  in- 
quest ;    not  such  as  would   suffice  in  a  grand   cere- 

*  In  general  usage,  '  The  antique '  is  a  phrase  limited  to  the 
expression  of  art ;  but  improperly  so.  It  is  quite  as  legitimately 
used  to  denote  the  literature  of  ancient  times,  in  contradis- 
tinction to  the  modern.  As  to  the  term  classical,  though  gener- 
ally employed  as  equivalent  to  Greek  and  Roman,  the  reader 
must  not  forget  this  is  quite  a  false  limitation,  contradicting  the 
very  reason  for  applying  the  word  in  any  sense  to  literature. 
For  the  application  arose  thus  :  The  social  body  of  Rome  being 
divided  into  six  classes,  of  which  the  lowest  was  the  sixth,  it 
followed  that  the  highest  was  the  first.  Thence,  by  a  natural 
process  common  to  most  languages,  those  who  belonged  to  this 
highest  had  no  number  at  all  assigned  to  them.  The  very 
absence  of  a  number,  the  calling  them  clasnici,  implied  that  they 
belonged  to  the  class  empliatically,  or  par  excellence.  The 
classics  meant,  therefore,  the  grandees  in  social  consideration  ; 
and  thence  by  analogy  in  literature.  But  if  this  analogy  be 
transferred  from  Rome  to  Greece,  where  it  had  no  correspond- 
ing root  in  civic  arrangement — then,  by  parity  of  reason,  to  all 
nations. 


32  DE   QUINCE Y. 

monial  day  of  hattle— a,  justum  pi'ceUum,  as  a  Roman 
would  call  it — but  in  a  mere  perfunctory  skirmish, 
or  (if  the  reader  objects  to  that  word  as  pedantic, 
though,  really,  it  is  a  highly-favoui-ed  word  amongst 
ancient  divines,  and  with  many  a 

*  philosopher, 
Who  ha3  read  Alexander  Ross  over,') 

why,  in  that  case,  let  us  indulge  his  fastidious  taste 
by  calling  it  an  autoschediastic  combat,  to  which, 
surely,  there  can  be  no  such  objection.  And  as  the 
manner  of  the  combat  is  autoschediastic  or  extempo- 
raneous, and  to  meet  a  hurried  occasion,  so  is  the 
reader  to  understand  that  the  object  of  our  disputa- 
tion is  not  the  learned,  but  the  unlearned  student ; 
and  our  purpose,  not  so  much  to  discontent  the  one 
with  his  painful  acquisitions,  as  to  console  the  other 
under  what,  upon  the  old  principle  of  omne  ignotuiii 
pro  magnifico,  he  is  too  apt  to  imagine  his  irreparable 
disadvantages.  We  set  before  us,  as  our  especial 
auditor,  the  reasonable  man  of  plain  sense  but  strong 
feeling,  who  wishes  to  know  how  much  he  has  lost, 
and  what  injury  the  gods  did  him,  when,  though 
making  him,  perhaps,  poetical,  tliey  cut  short  his 
allowance  of  Latin,  and,  as  to  Greek,  gave  him  not  a 
jot  more  than  a  cow  has  in  her  side  pocket. 

Let  us  begin  at  the  beginning — and  that,  as  every- 
body knows,  is  Homer.  He  is,  indeed,  so  much  at 
the  beginning  that,  for  that  very  reason  (if  even 
there  were  no  other),  he  is,  and  will  be  ever  more, 
supremely  interesting.  Is  the  unlearned  reader 
aware  of  his  age?  Upon  that  point  there  are  more 
hypotheses  than  one  or  even  two.     Some  there  are 


A  BRIEF  APPRAISAL  OF  THE  GREEK  LITERATURE.  33 

among  the  chronologers  who  make  him  eleven  hun- 
dred years  anterior  to  Christ.  But  those  who  allow 
him  least,  place  him  moi-e  than  nine — that  is,  about 
two  centuries  before  the  establishment  of  the  Grecian 
Olympiads,  and  (which  is  pretty  nearly  the  same 
thing  as  regards  time)  before  Romulus  and  Remus. 
Such  an  antiquity  as  this,  even  on  its  own  account, 
is  a  reasonable  object  of  interest.  A  poet  to  whom 
the  great-grandfather  of  old  Ancus  Martius  (his 
grandfather,  did  we  say — that  is,  avus  1 — nay,  his 
abavus,  his  atavus,  his  tritavus)  looked  back  as  to  one 
in  a  line  with  his  remote  ancestor — a  poet  who,  if  he 
travelled  about  as  extensively  as  some  have  supposed 
him  to  do,  or  even  as  his  own  countryman  Herodotus 
most  certainly  did  five  or  six  hundred  years  after- 
wards, might  have  conversed  with  the  very  workmen 
who  laid  the  foundations  of  the  first  temple  at  Jeru- 
salem— might  have  bent  the  knee  before  Solomon  in 
all  his  glory : — Such  a  poet,  were  he  no  better  than 
the  worst  of  our  own  old  meti'ical  romancers,  would 
— merely  for  his  antiquity,  merely  for  the  sublime 
fact  of  having  been  coeval  with  the  eldest  of  those 
whom  the  eldest  of  histories  presents  to  our  know- 
ledge ;  coeval  with  the  earliest  kings  of  Judah,  older 
than  the  greatest  of  the  Judean  jirophets,  older  than 
the  separation  of  the  two  Jewish  crowns  and  the 
revolt  of  Israel,  and,  even  with  regaid  to  Moses  and 
to  Joshua,  not  in  any  larger  sense  junior  than  as  we 
ourselves  are  junior  to  Chaucer — purely  and  exclu- 
sively with  regard  to  these  pretensions,  backed  and 
supported  by  an  antique  form  of  an  antique  language 
— the  most  comprehensive  and  the  most  melodious 
in  the  world,  would — could — should — ought  to  merit 

VOL.  I.  C 


34  DE    QUINCEY. 

a  filial  attention ;  and,  perhaps  with  those  who  had 
waggon-loads  of  time  to  spare,  might  plead  the  benefit, 
beyond  most  of  those  in  whose  favour  it  was  enacted, 
of  that  Horatian  rule — 

'  vos  exemplaria  Grseca, 
Noctuvna  versate  maiiu,  versate  diunia.' 

In  fact,  when  we  recollect  that,  in  round  numbers, 
we  ourselves  may  be  considered  as  two  thousand 
years  in  advance  of  Christ,  and  that  (by  assuming 
less  even  than  a  mean  between  the  different  dates 
assigned  to  Homer)  he  stands  a  thousand  years  before 
Christ,  we  find  between  Homer  and  ourselves  a  gulf 
of  three  thousand  years,  or  about  one  clear  half  of 
the  total  extent  which  we  grant  to  the  present  dura- 
tion of  our  planet.  This  in  itself  is  so  sublime  a 
cii'cumstance  in  the  relations  of  Homer  to  our  era, 
and  the  sense  of  power  is  so  delightfully  titillated 
to  that  man's  feeling,  who,  by  means  of  Greek,  and 
a  very  moderate  skill  in  this  fine  language,  is  able 
to  grasp  the  awful  span,  the  vast  arch  of  which  one 
foot  rest  upon  1838,  and  the  other  almost  upon  the 
war  of  Troy — the  miglity  rainbow  which,  like  the 
archangel  in  the  Revelation,  plants  its  western 
limb  amongst  the  carnage  and  the  magnificence  of 
Waterloo,  and  the  other  amidst  the  vanishing  gleams 
and  the  dusty  clouds  of  Agamemnon's  rearguard — 
that  we  may  pardon  a  little  exultation  to  the  man 
who  can  actually  mutter  to  himself,  as  he  rides  home 
of  a  summer  evening,  the  very  words  and  vocal  music 
of  the  old  blind  man  at  whose  command 

' the  Ihad  and  the  Odyssey 


Eose  to  the  murmurs  of  the  voiceful  sea.' 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     35 

But  pleasures  in  this  world  fortunately  are  without 
end.  And  every  man,  after  all,  has  many  pleasures 
peculiar  to  himself — pleasures  which  no  man  shares 
with  him,  even  as  he  is  shut  out  from  many  of  other 
men.  To  renounce  one  in  particular,  is  no  subject 
for  sorrow,  so  long  as  many  remain  in  that  very  class 
equal  or  superior.  Elwood  the  Quaker  had  a  luxury 
which  none  of  us  will  ever  have,  in  hearing  the  very 
voice  and  utterance  of  a  poet  quiet  as  blind  as  Homer, 
and  by  many  a  thousand  times  more  sublime.  And 
yet  Elwood  was  not  pei-haps  much  happier  for  that. 
For  now,  to  proceed,  reader — abstract  from  his 
sublime  antiquity,  and  his  being  the  very  earliest  of 
authors,  allowance  made  for  one  or  two  Hebrew 
writers  (who,  being  inspired,  are  scarcely  to  be 
viewed  as  human  competitors),  how  much  is  there  in 
Homer,  intrinsically  in  Homer,  stripped  of  his  fine 
dx-aperies  of  time  and  circumstance,  in  the  naked 
Homer,  disapparelled  of  the  pride,  pomp,  and  circum- 
stance of  glorious  antiquity,  to  remunerate  a  man  for 
his  labour  in  acquiring  Greek]  Men  think  very  dif- 
ferently about  what  ivill  remunerate  any  given  labour. 
A  fool  (professional  fool)  in  Shakspeare  ascertains, 
by  a  natural  process  of  logic,  that  a  '  remuneration ' 
means  a  testern,  which  is  just  sixpence ;  and  two 
remunerations,  therefore,  a  testoon,  or  one  shilling. 
But  many  men  will  consider  the  same  service  ill  paid 
by  a  thousand  pounds.  So,  of  the  reimbursement  for 
learning  a  language.  Lord  Camden  is  said  to  have 
learned  Spanish,  merely  to  enjoy  Don  Quixote  more 
racily.  Cato,  the  elder  Cato,  after  abusing  Greek 
throughout  his  life,  sat  down  in  extreme  old  age  to 
study  it :    and  wherefore  1     Mr.    Coleridge  mentions 

c  2 


36  DE    QUINOEY. 

an  author,  in  whom,  upon  opening  his  pages  with 
other  expectations,  he  stumbled  upon  the  following 
fragrant  passage — '  But  from  this  frivolous  digression 
upon  philosophy  and  the  fine  arts,  let  us  return  to  a 
subject  too  little  understood  or  appi-eciated  in  these 
sceptical  days — the  subject  of  dung.'  Now,  that  was 
precisely  the  course  of  thought  with  this  old  censor- 
ious Cato  :  So  long  as  Greek  offered,  or  seemed  to 
offer,  nothing  but  philosophy  or  poetry,  he  was 
clamorous  against  Greek ;  but  he  began  to  thaw  and 
melt  a  little  upon  the  charms  of  Greek — he  '  owned 
tiie  soft  impeachment,'  when  he  heard  of  some  Grecian 
treatises  upon  beans  and  tu7-n{ps ;  and,  tinally,  he 
sank  under  its  voluptuous  seductions,  when  he  heard 
of  others  upon  dung.  There  are,  therefore,  as  different 
notions  about  a  '  remuneration '  in  this  case,  as  the 
poor  fool  had  met  with  it  in  his  case.  We,  however, 
unappalled  )>y  the  bad  names  of  '  Goth,'  *  Vandal, 
and  so  forth,  shall  honestly  lay  before  the  reader  ou7' 
notions. 

When  Dryden  wrote  his  famous,  indeed  matchless, 
epigram  upon  the  three  great  masters  (or  reputed 
masters)  of  the  Epopee,  he  found  himself  at  no  loss 
to  characterize  the  last  of  the  triad — no  matter  what 
qualities  he  imputed  to  the  first  and  the  second,  he 
knew  himself  safe  in  imputing  them  all  to  the  third. 
The  mighty  modern  had  everything  that  his  pre- 
decessors were  ever  thought  to  have,  as  well  as  some- 
thing   beside.*       So    ho    expressed    the    surpassing 

*  The  beauty  of  this  famous  epigram  lies  in  the/or»i  of  the 
conception.  The  first  had  A  ;  the  second  had  B  ;  and  when 
nature,  to  furnish  out  a  third,  should  have  given  him  C,  she 
found  that  A  and  B  had  already  exhausted  her  cycle  ;  and  that 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     37 

grandeur  of  Milton,  by  saying  that  in  him  nature  had 
embodied,  by  concentration  as  in  one  focus,  whatever 
excellencies  she  had  scattered  separately  amongst  her 
earlier  favourites.  But,  in  strict  regard  to  the  facts, 
this  is  far  from  being  a  faithful  statement  of  the 
relations  between  Milton  and  his  elder  brothers  of 
the  Epos :  in  sublimity,  if  that  is  what  Dryden  meant 
by  '  loftiness  of  thought,'  it  is  not  so  fair  to  class 
Milton  with  the  greatest  of  poets,  as  to  class  him 
apart,  retired  from  all  others,  sequestei^ed,  '  sole-sitting 
by  the  shores  of  old  romance.'  In  other  poets,  in 
Dante  for  example,  there  may  be  rays,  gleams,  sudden 
coruscations,  casual  scintillations,  of  the  sublime  ;  bvit 
for  any  continuous  and  sustained  blaze  of  the  sublime, 
it  is  in  vain  to  look  for  it,  except  in  Milton,  making 
allowances  (as  before)  for  the  inspired  sublimities  of 
Isaiah,  Ezekiel,  and  of  the  great  Evangelist's  Eeve- 
latious.  As  to  Homer,  no  critic  who  writes  from 
personal  and  direct  knowledge  on  the  one  hand,  or 
who  understands  the  value  of  words  on  the  other, 
ever  contended  in  any  critical  sense  for  sublimity,  as 
a  quality  to  which  he  had  the  slightest  pretensions. 
What !  not  Longinus  1  If  he  did,  it  would  have  been 
of  little  consequence ;  for  he  hud  no  field  of  com- 
parison, as  we,  knowing  no  literature  but  one — ■ 
whereas  we  have  a  range  of  seven  or  eight.  But  he 
did  not :  To  v\pr]\oi',*  or  the  elevated,  in  the  Louginian 

she  could  distinguish  her  third  great  favourite  only  by  giving 
him  both  A  and  B  in  combination.  But  the  filling  up  of  this 
outline  is  imperfect :  for  the  A  {loftinrs.t)  and  the  B  {majesty) 
are  one  and  the  same  quality,  under  different  names. 

*  liecause  the  Latin  word  sublimis  is  applied  to  objects 
soaring  upwards,  or  floating  aloft,  or  at  an  aerial  altitude,  and 
because  the  word  does  sometimes  correspond  to  our  idea  of  the 


38  DE    QUINCEY. 

sense,  expressed  all,  no  matter  of  what  origin,  of 
what  tendency,  which  gives  a  character  of  life  and 
animation  to  composition — whatever  raises  it  above 
the  dead  level  of  flat  prosaic  style.  Emphasis,  or 
what  in  an  artist's  sense  gives  relief  to  a  passage, 
causing  it  to  stand  forward,  and  in  advance  of  what 
surrounds  it — that  is  the  predominating  idea  in  the 
'  sublime '  of  Longinus.  And  this  explains  what 
otherwise  has  perplexed  his  modern  interpreters — 
viz,  that  amongst  the  elements  of  his  sublime,  he 
ranks  even  the  pathetic,  i.  e.  (say  they)  what  by 
connecting  itself  with  the  depressing  passion  of  grief 
is  the  very  counter-agent  to  the  elevating  affection  of 
the  sublime.  True,  most  sapient  sirs,  my  very 
worthy  and  approved  good  masters  :  but  that  very 
consideration  should  have  taught  you  to  look  back, 
and  reconsider  your  translation  of  the  capital  word 
v^oQ.  It  was  rather  too  late  in  the  day,  when  you 
had  waded  half-seas  over  in  your  translation,  to  find 

sublime  (in  which  the  notion  of  height  is  united  with  the 
notion  of  moral  grandeiu-),  and  because,  in  the  excessive  vague- 
ness and  lawless  latitudinarianism  of  our  common  Greek 
Lexicons,  the  word  v^oq  is  translated,  inter  alia,  by  to  sublime, 
suhlimitas,  &c.  Hence  it  has  happened  that  the  title  of  the 
little  essay  ascribed  to  Longinus,  Tlipl  v4'oi'g,  is  usually  rendered 
into  English,  Conccr7iing  the  sublime.  But  the  idea  of  the 
Sublime,  as  defined,  circumscribed,  and  circumstantiated,  in 
English  literature — an  idea  altogether  of  English  growth — the 
sublime  byivay  of  polar  antithesis  to  the  Beautiful,  had  no  exist- 
ence amongst  ancient  critics  ;  consequently  it  could  have  no 
expression.  It  is  a  great  thought,  a  true  thought,  a  demon- 
strable thought,  that  the  Sublime,  as  thus  ascertained,  and  in 
contraposition  to  the  Beautiful,  grew  up  on  the  basis  of  scztial 
distinctions,  the  Sublime  corresponding  to  the  male,  the 
Beautiful,  its  anti-pole,  coiTesponding  to  the  female.  Behold  ! 
we  show  you  a  mystery. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     39 

out  either  that  you  yourselves  were  ignoramuses,  or 
that  your  principal  was  an  ass.  '  Returning  were  as 
tedious  as  go  o'er.'  And  any  man  might  guess  how 
you  would  settle  such  a  dilemma.  It  is,  according  to 
you,  a  little  oversight  of  your  principal :  *  humanum 
aliquid  jmssus  est.'  We,  on  the  other  hand,  affirm 
that,  if  an  error  at  all  on  the  part  of  Longinus,  it  is 
too  monstrous  for  any  man  to  have  '  overlooked.'  As 
long  as  he  could  see  a  pike-staff,  he  must  have  seen 
that.  And,  therefore,  we  revert  to  our  view  of  the 
case — viz.  that  it  is  yourselves  who  have  committed 
the  blunder,  in  translating  by  the  Latin  word  sub- 
limis  *  at  all,  but  still  more  after  it  had  received  new 
determinations  under  modern  usage. 

*  No  word  has  ever  given  so  mucli  trouble  to  modern  critics 
as  this  very  word  (now  under  discussion)  of  the  sublime.  To 
those  who  have  little  Greek  aud  no  Latin,  it  is  necessary  in  the 
first  place  that  we  should  state  what  are  the  most  obvious 
elements  of  the  word.  According  to  the  noble  army  of  etymo- 
logists, they  are  these  two  Latin  words — stib,  under,  and  limus, 
inud.  Oh !  gemini !  who  would  have  thought  of  groping  for 
the  sublime  in  such  a  situation  as  that  '—unless,  indeed,  it  were 
that  writer  cited  by  Mr.  Coleridge,  and  just  now  referred  to  by 
ourselves,  who  complains  of  frivolous  modern  readers,  as  not 
being  able  to  raise  and  sequester  their  thoughts  to  the  abstract 
consideration  of  dung.  Hence  it  has  followed,  that  most  people 
have  quarrelled  with  the  etymology.  Whereupon  the  late  Dr. 
Parr,  of  pedantic  memory,  wrote  a  huge  letter  to  Mr.  Dugald 
Stewart,  but  the  marrow  of  which  lies  in  a  nutshell,  especially 
being  rather  hollow  within.  The  learned  doctor,  in  the  first 
folio,  grapples  with  the  word  sub,  which,  says  he,  comes  from 
the  Greek — so  much  is  clear — but  from  what  Greek,  Bezonian  ? 
The  thoughtless  world,  says  he,  trace  it  to  iiiro  (hypo),  sub,  i.  e. 
under ;  but  I,  Ego,  Samuel  Parr,  the  Birmingham  doctor,  trace 
it  to  virip  (hyper),  super,  i.  e.  above  ;  between  which  the  dif- 
ference is  not  less  than  between  a  chestnut  horse  and  a  horse- 
chestnut.     To  this  learned  Parrian  dissertation  on  mud,  there 


40  DE   QUINCEY, 

Now,  therefore,  after  this  explanation,  recurring  to 
the  Longiuiaii  critiques  upon  Homer,  it  will  avail  any 
idolator  of  Homer  but  little,  it  will  affect  us  not  much, 
to  mention  that  Longinus  makes  frequent  reference 
to  the  Iliad,  as  the  great  source  of  the  sublime — 

'A  quo,  ceu  fonte  pei'cnni, 
Vatum  Pieiiis  ora  rigantui'  aquis '  ; 

for,  as  respected  Grecian  poets,  and  as  respected  his 
sense  of  the  word,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Homer 
was  such.  He  was  the  great  well-head  of  inspiration 
to  the  Pagan  poets  of  after  times,  who,  however  [as  a 
hody),  moved  in  the  narrowest  circle  that  has  ever 
yet  confined  the  natural  freedom  of  the  poetic  mind. 
But,  in  conceding  this,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  how 
much  Ave  concede — we  concede  as  much  as  Longinus 
demanded ;  that  is,  that  Homer  furnished  an  ideal 
or  model  of  fluent  narration,  picturesque  descrip- 
tion, and  the  first  outlines  of  what  could  be  called 
characteristic  delineations  of  persons.  Accordingly, 
uuinventive    Greece — for   we    maintain   lovidly   that 

cannot  be  much  reasonably  to  object,  except  its  length  in  the 
first  place  ;  and,  secondly,  that  we  ourselves  exceedingly  doubt 
the  common  interpretation  of  limus.  Most  unquestionalJy,  if 
the  sublime  is  to  be  brought  into  any  relation  at  all  to  mud,  we 
shall  all  be  of  one  mind — that  it  must  be  found  above.  But  to 
us  it  appears — that  when  the  true  modern  idea  of  mud  was  in 
view,  limii^  was  not  the  word  used.  Cicero,  for  instance,  when 
he  wishes  to  call  Piso  'filth,  mud,'  &c.  calls  him  Cocnurn:  and, 
in  general,  limus  seems  to  have  involved  the  notion  of  some- 
thing adhesive,  and  rather  to  express  plaistcr,  or  artificially 
prepared  cement,  &c.,  than  that  of  filth  or  impure  depositions. 
Accordingly,  our  own  definition  differs  from  the  Parrian,  or 
Birmingham  definition  ;  and  may,  nevertheless,  be  a  Birming- 
ham definition  also.  Not  having  room  to  defend  it,  for  the 
present  we  forbear  to  state  it. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     41 

Greece,  in  her  poets,  u-as  uninventive  and  sterile 
beyond  the  example  of  other  nations— received,  as  a 
traditional  inheritance,  the  characters  of  the  Paladins 
of  the  Tread.*  Achilles  is  always  the  all-accomplished 
and  supreme  amongst  these  Paladins,  the  Orlando  of 
ancient  romance ;  Agamemnon,  for  ever  the  Char- 
lemagne ;  Ajax,  for  ever  the  sullen,  imperturbable, 
columnar  champion,  the  Mandricardo,  the  Bergen-op- 
Zoom  of  his  faction,  and  corresponding  to  our  modern 
*  Chicken '  in  the  pugilistic  ring,  who  was  so  called 
(as  the  books  of  the  Fancy  say)  because  he  was  a 
'  glutton  ' ;  and  a  *  glutton  '  in  this  sense — that  he 
would  take  any  amount  of  ci^amming  (i.  e.  any  pos- 
sible quantum  of  '  milling,'  or  '  punishment ').  Ulysses, 
again,  is  uniformly,  no  matter  whether  in  the  solem- 
nities of  the  tragic  scene,  or  the  festivities  of  the 
Ovidian  romance,  the  same  shy  cock,  but  also  sly 
cock,  with  the  least  thought  of  a  white  feather  in  his 
plumage ;  Diomed  is  the  same  unmeaning  double  of 
every  other  hero,  just  as  Pinaldo  is  with  respect  to 
his  greater  cousin,  Orlando ;  and  so  of  Teucer, 
Meriones,  Idomeneus,  and  the  other  less-marked 
characters.  The  Greek  drama  took  up  these  tradi- 
tional characters,  and  sometimes  deepened,  saddened, 
exalted  the  features — as  Sophocles,  for  instance,  does 
with  his   'Ajax  Flagellifer ' — Ajax    the  knouter  of 

*  There  is  a  diflBculty  iu  assigning  any  term  as  comprehen- 
sive enough  to  describe  the  Grecian  heroes  and  their  antagonists, 
who  fought  at  Troy.  The  seven  chieftains  against  Thebes  are 
described  sufficiently  as  Theban  captains  ;  but,  to  say  Trajan 
chieftains,  wouLl  express  only  the  heroes  of  one  side  ;  Grecian, 
again,  would  be  liable  to  that  fault  equally,  and  to  another  far 
greater,  of  being  under  no  limitation  as  to  time.  This  difficulty 
must  explain  and  (if  it  can)  justify  our  collective  phrase  of  the 
Paladins  of  the  Troad. 


42  DE    QUINCEY. 

sheep — where,  by  the  way,  the  remorse  and  peniten- 
tial grief  of  Ajax  for  his  own  self-degradation,  and 
the  depth  of  his  affliction  for  the  triumph  which  he 
had  afforded  to  his  enemies — taken  in  connection 
with  the  tender  fears  of  his  wife,  Tecmessa,  for  the 
fate  to  which  his  gloomy  despair  was  too  manifestly 
driving  him ;  her  own  conscious  desolation,  and  the 
orphan  weakness  of  her  son,  in  the  event  which  she 
too  fearfully  anticipates — the  final  suicide  of  Ajax ; 
the  brotherly  affection  of  Teucer  to  the  widow  and 
the  young  son  of  the  hero,  together  with  the 
unlooked-for  sympathy  of  Ulysses,  who,  instead  of 
exulting  in  the  ruin  of  his  antagonist,  mourns  over 
it  with  generous  tears — compose  a  situation,  and  a 
succession  of  situations,  not  equalled  in  the  Greek 
tragedy ;  and,  in  that  instance,  we  see  an  effort,  rare 
in  Grecian  poetry,  of  conquest  achieved  by  idealisation 
over  a  mean  incident— viz.  the  hallucination  of  brain 
in  Ajax,  by  which  he  mistakes  the  sheep  for  his 
Grecian  enemies,  ties  them  up  for  flagellation,  and 
scourges  them  as  periodically  as  if  he  were  a  critical 
reviewer.  But  really,  in  one  extremity  of  this  mad- 
ness, where  he  fixes  upon  an  old  ram  for  Agamemnon, 
as  the  leader  of  the  flock,  the  ui'al  urSptJi'  Ayafiefii'tJi', 
there  is  an  extravagance  of  the  ludicrous  against 
which,  though  not  exhibited  scenically,  but  simply 
narrated,  no  solemnity  of  pathos  could  avail ;  even  in 
nari'ation,  the  violation  of  tragical  dignity  is  insuffer- 
able, and  is  as  much  worse  than  the  hyper-tragic 
horrors  of  Titus  Andronicus  (a  play  which  is  usually 
printed,  without  reason,  amongst  those  of  Shakspeare) 
as  absolute  farce  or  contradiction  of  all  pathos  must 
inevitably  be  a  worse  indecorum  than  physical  horrors 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF   THE    GREEK    LITERATUEE.     43 

which  simply  outrage  it  by  excess.  Let  us  not, 
therefore,  hear  of  the  judgment  displayed  upon  the 
Grecian  stage,  when  even  Sophocles,  the  chief  master 
of  dramatic  economy  and  scenical  propriety,  could 
thus  err  by  an  aberration  so  far  transcending  the 
most  memorable  violation  of  stage  decorum  which 
has  ever  been  charged  upon  the  English  drama. 

From  Homer,  therefore,  were  left,  as  a  bequest  to 
all  future  poets,  the  romantic  adventures  which  grow, 
as  so  many  collateral  dependencies, 

'  Froin  the  tale  of  Troy  divine ' ; 
and  from  Homer  was  derived  also  the  discrimination 
of  the  leading  characters,  which,  after  all,  were  but 
coarsely  and  rudely  discriminated ;  at  least,  for  the 
majority.  In  one  instance  only  we  acknowledge  an 
exception.  We  have  heard  a  great  modern  poet 
dwelling  with  real  and  not  coianterfeit  enthusiasm 
upon  thj  character  (or  rather  upon  the  general 
picture,  as  made  up  both  of  character  and  position), 
which  the  course  of  the  Iliad  assigns  gradually  to 
Achilles.  The  view  which  he  took  of  this  imperson- 
ation of  human  grandeur,  combining  all  gifts  of 
intellect  and  of  body,  matchless  speed,  strength,  in- 
evitable eye,  courage,  and  the  immortal  beauty  of  a 
god,  being  also,  by  his  birth-right,  half-divine,  and 
consecrated  to  the  imagination  by  his  fatal  inter- 
weaving with  the  destinies  of  Troy,  and  to  the  heart 
by  the   early  death   which   to  his   oicn   hnoioledge  * 

*  *  To  his  own  knowledge ' — see,  for  proof  of  this,  the  gloomy 
serenity  of  his  answer  to  his  dying  victim,  when  predicting  his 
approaching  end  : — 

'  Enough  ;  I  know  my  fate  :  to  die — to  see  no  more 
My  much-lov'd  parents,  and  my  native  shore,'  &c.  &c. 


44  DE    QUINCEY. 

impended  over  liis  magnificent  career,  and  so  abruptly 
shut  up  its  vista — ^tlie  view,  we  say,  which  our  friend 
took  of  the  presiding  character  throvighout  the  Iliad, 
who  is  introduced  to  us  in  the  very  first  line,  and 
who  is  only  eclipsed  for  seventeen  books,  to  emerge 
upon  us  with  more  awful  lustre ; — the  view  which  he 
took  was — that  Achilles,  and  Achilles  only,  in  the 
Grecian  poetry,  was  a  great  idea — an  idealised 
creation ;  and  we  remember  that  in  this  respect  he 
compared  the  Homeric  Achilles  with  the  Angelica  of 
Ariosto.  Her  only  he  regarded  as  an  idealisation  in 
the  Orlando  Furioso.  And  certainly  in  the  luxury 
and  excess  of  her  all-conquering  beauty,  which  drew 
after  her  from  '  ultimate  Cathay '  to  the  camps  of  the 
baptised  in  France,  and  back  again,  from  the  palace 
of  Charlemagne,  drew  half  the  Paladins,  and  '  half 
Spain  militant,'  to  the  portals  of  the  rising  sun ;  that 
sovereign  beauty  which  (to  say  nothing  of  kings  and 
princes  withered  by  her  frowns)  ruined  for  a  time  the 
most  princely  of  all  the  Paladins,  the  supreme  Orlando, 
crazed  him  with  scorn, 

'  And  robbed  him  of  his  noble  wits  outright ' — 

in  all  this,  we  must  acknowledge  a  glorification  of 
power  not  unlike  that  of  Achilles : — 

'  Irresistible  Pelides,  wliom,  unarm'd, 
No  strength  of  man  or  wikl  beast  could  withstand  ; 
Who  tore  the  lion  as  the  lion  tears  the  kid ; 
Ean  on  embattl'd  armies  clad  in  iron  ; 
And,  weaponless  himself, 
Made  arms  ridiculous,  useless  the  forgery 
Of  brazen  shield  and  spear,  the  hammer'd  cuirass, 
Chalybean  temper'd  steel,  and  frock  of  mail, 
Adamantean  proof ; 
But  safest  he  who  stood  aloof, 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     45 

When  insupportably  Lis  foot  advanced 

Spurned  them  to  death  by  troops.     The  bokl  Priamides 

Fled  from  his  lion  ramp  ;  old  warriors  turn'd 

Their  plated  backs  under  his  heel, 

Or,  groveling,  soil'd  their  crested  helmets  in  the  dust.' 

These  are  the  words  of  Milton  in  describing  that 
*  heroic  Nazarete,'  '  God's  champion ' — 

*  Promis'd  by  heavenly  message  twice  descending ' ; 

heralded,  like  Pelides, 

*  By  an  angel  of  his  birth. 
Who  from  his  father's  field 
Rode  up  in  flames  after  his  message  told ' ; 

these  are  the  celestial  woi'ds  which  describe  the 
celestial  prowess  of  the  Hebrew  monomachist,  the 
irresistible  Sampson ;  and  are  hardly  less  applicable 
to  the  '  champion  paramount '  of  Greece  confederate. 

This,  therefore,  this  unique  concejition,  with  what 
power  they  might,  later  Greek  poets  adopted ;  and 
the  other  Homeric  characters  they  transplanted  some- 
what monotonously,  but  at  times,  we  ai-e  willing  to 
admit,  and  have  already  admitted,  improving  and 
solemnizing  the  original  epic  portraits  when  brought 
upon  the  stage.  But  all  this  extent  of  obligation 
amongst  later  poets  of  Greece  to  Homer  serves  less 
to  argue  his  opulence  than  their  penury.  And  if, 
quitting  the  one  great  blazing  jewel,  the  Urim  and 
Thummim  of  the  Iliad,  you  descend  to  individual 
passages  of  poetic  effect ;  and  if  amongst  these  a 
fancy  should  seize  you  of  asking  for  a  specimen  of  the 
Sublime  in  particular,  what  is  it  that  you  are  offered 
by  the  critics  1  Nothing  that  we  remember  beyond 
one   single    passage,  in   which   the    god    Neptune    is 


46  DE   QUINCEY. 

described  in  a  steeple  chase,  and  *  making  play '  at  a 
terrific  pace.  And  certainly  enough  is  exhibited  of 
the  old  boy's  hoofs,  and  their  spanking  qualities,  to 
wan-ant  our  backing  him  against  a  railroad  for  a 
rump  and  dozen ;  but,  after  all,  there  is  nothing  to 
grow  frisky  about,  as  Longinus  does,  who  gets  up  the 
steam  of  a  blue-stocking  enthusiasm,  and  boils  us  a 
regular  gallop  of  ranting,  in  which,  like  the  conceited 
snipe  *  upon  the  Liverpool  railroad,  he  thinks  himself 
to  run  a  match  with  Sampson ;  and,  whilst  affecting 
to  admire  Homer,  is  manifestly  squinting  at  the 
reader  to  see  how  far  he  admires  his  own  flourish  of 
admiration ;  and,  in  the  very  agony  of  his  frosty 
raptures,  is  quite  at  leisure  to  look  out  for  a  little 
private  traffic  of  rapture  on  his  own  account.  But  it 
won't  do ;  this  old  critical  posture-master  (whom,  if 
Aurelian  hanged,  surely  he  knew  what  he  was  about) 
may  as  well  put  up  his  rapture  pipes,  and  (as  Lear 
says)  '  not  squiny '  at  us ;  for  let  us  ask  Master 
Longinus,  in  what  earthly  respect  do  these  great 
strides  of  Neptune  exceed  Jack  with  his  seven-league 
boots  1  Let  him  answer  that,  if  he  can.  We  hold 
that  Jack  has  the  advantage.  Or,  again  look  at  the 
Koran  :  does  any  man  but  a  foolish  Oi'iental  think 
that  passage  sublime  where  Mahomet  describes  the 
divine  pen  ?  It  is,  says  he,  made  of  mother-of-pearl ; 
so  much  for  the  *  raw  material,'  as  the  economists  say. 
But  now  for  the  size  :  it  can  hardly  be  called  a  '  poi*- 

*  On  the  memorable  inaugural  day  of  the  Liverpool  railroad, 
when  Mr.  Huskisson  met  with  so  sad  a  fate,  a  snipe  or  a  plover 
tried  a  race  with  Sampson,  one  of  the  engines.  The  race  con- 
tinued neck  and  neck  for  about  six  miles,  after  which,  the  snipe 
finding  itself  likely  to  come  off  second  best,  found  it  convenient 
to  wheel  off,  at  a  turn  of  the  road,  into  the  solitudes  of  Chat  Moss. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     47 

table '  pen  at  all  events,  for  we  are  told  that  it  is  so 
tall  of  its  age,  that  an  Arabian  thoroughbred  horse 
would  requii-e  500  years  for  galloping  down  the  slit 
to  the  nib.  Now  this  Arabic  sublime  is  in  this 
instance  quite  a  kin  brother  to  the  Homeric. 

However,  it  is  likely  that  we  shall  here  be  reminded 
of  our  own  challenge  to  the  Longinian  word  v\pr]\ov 
as  not  at  all  corresponding,  or  even  alluding  to  the 
modern  word  sublime.  But  in  this  instance,  the  dis- 
tinction will  not  much  avail  that  critic — for  no 
matter  by  what  particular  ivo7'cl  he  may  convey  his 
sense  of  its  quality,  clear  it  is,  by  his  way  of  illus- 
trating its  peculiar  merit,  that,  in  his  opinion,  these 
huge  strides  of  Neptune's  have  something  super- 
naturally  grand  about  them.  But,  waiving  this 
solitary  instance  in  Homer  of  the  sublime,  according 
to  his  idolatrous  critics — of  the  pseudo  sublime  accord- 
ing to  ourselves — in  all  other  cases  where  Longinus, 
or  any  other  Greek  writer  has  cited  Homer  as  the 
great  exemplary  model  of  v\pur  in  composition,  we  are 
to  understand  him  according  to  the  Grecian  sense  of 
that  word.  He  must  then  be  supposed  to  praise 
Homer,  not  so  much  for  any  ideal  grandeur  either  of 
thought,  image,  or  situation,  as  in  a  general  sense  for 
his  animated  style  of  narration,  for  the  variety  and 
spirited  effect  with  which  he  relieves  the  direct 
formal  narration  in  his  own  person  by  dialogue  be- 
tween the  subjects  of  his  narration,  thus  ventriloquis- 
ing and  throwing  his  own  voice  as  often  as  he  can 
into  the  surrounding  objects — or  again  for  the  similes 
and  allusive  pictures  by  which  he  points  emphasis  to 
a  situation  or  interest  to  a  person. 

Now  then  we  have  it :  when  you  describe  Homer, 


48  DE   QUINCEY. 

or  when  you  heai*  liim  described  as  a  lively  picturesque 
old  boy  [by  the  way,  why  does  everybody  speak  of 
Homer  as  old  ?],  full  of  life,  and  animation,  and  move- 
ment, then  you  say  (or  you  hear  say)  what  is  true, 
and  not  much  more  than  what  is  true.  Only  about 
that  word  picturesque  we  demur  a  little  :  as  a  chirui*- 
geon,  he  certainly  is  picturesque ;  for  Howship  upon 
gunshot  wounds  is  a  joke  to  him  when  he  lectures 
upon  trawmacy,  if  we  may  presume  to  coin  that  word, 
or  upon  traumatic  philosophy  (as  Mr.  M'Culloch  says 
80  grandly.  Economic  Science).  But,  apart  from  this, 
we  cannot  allow  that  simply  to  say  ZukwQoq  viixoefftra, 
woody  Zacynthus,  is  any  better  argument  of  pictur- 
esqueness  than  Stony  Stratford,  or  Harrow  on  the 
Hill.  Be  assured,  reader,  that  the  Homeric  age  was 
not  ripe  for  the  picturesque.  Price  on  the  Pic- 
turesque, or,  Gilpin  on  Forest  Scenery,  would  both 
have  been  sent  post-haste  to  Bedlam  in  those  days ; 
or  perhaps  Homer  himself  would  have  tied  a  millstone 
about  theii"  necks,  and  have  sunk  them  as  public 
nuisances  by  woody  Zante.  Besides,  it  puts  almost 
an  extinguisher  on  any  little  twinkling  of  the  pictur- 
esque that  might  have  flared  up  at  times  from  this  or 
that  suggestion,  when  each  individual  had  his  own 
regular  epithet  stei-eotyped  to  his  name  like  a  brass 
plate  upon  a  door :  Hector,  the  tamer  of  horses ; 
Achilles,  the  swift  of  foot;  the  ox-eyed,  respectable 
Juno.  Some  of  the  '  big  uns,'  it  is  true,  had  a  dress 
and  an  undress  suit  of  epithets :  as  for  instance, 
Hector  was  also  KopvdaioXoQ,  Hector  with  the  tossing 
or  the  variegated  plumes.  Achilles  again  Avas  ^log 
or  divine.  But  still  the  range  was  small,  and  the 
monotony  was  dire. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     49 

And  now,  if  you  come  in  good  earnest  to  pictur- 
esqueness,  let  us  mention  a  poet  in  sober  truth  worth 
five  hundred  of  Homer,  and  that  is  Chaucer.  Show 
us  a  piece  of  Homer's  handywork  that  comes  within 
a  hundred  leagues  of  that  divine  prologue  to  the 
Canterbury  2'ales,  or  of  '  The  Knight's  Tale,'  of  the 
'  Man  of  Law's  Tale,'  or  of  the  '  Tale  of  the  Patient 
Griseldis,'  or,  for  intense  life  of  narration  and  festive 
wit,  to  the  '  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale.'  Or,  passing  out  of 
the  Canterbury  Tales  for  the  picturesque  in  human 
manner  and  gesture,  and  play  of  countenance,  never 
equalled  as  yet  by  Pagan  or  Christian,  go  to  the 
Troilus  and  Cresseid,  and,  for  instance,  to  the  con- 
versation between  Troilus  and  Pandarus,  or,  again, 
between  Pandarus  and  Cresseid.  Rightly  did  a  critic 
of  the  17th  century  pronounce  Chaucer  a  miracle  of 
natural  genius,  as  having  '  taken  into  the  compass 
of  his  Canterbury  Tales,  the  various  manners  and 
humours  of  the  whole  English  nation  in  his  age ;  not 
a  single  character  has  escaped  him.'  And  this  critic 
then  proceeds  thus — '  The  matter  and  manner  of 
these  tales,  and  of  their  telling,  are  so  suited  to  their 
different  educations,  humours,  and  calling,  that  each 
of  them  would  be  improper  in  any  other  mouth. 
Even  the  grave  and  serious  characters  are  distin- 
guished by  their  several  sorts  of  gi'avity.  Even  the 
ribaldry  of  the  low  characters  is  different.  But  there 
is  such  a  variety  of  game  springing  up  before  me, 
that  I  am  distracted  in  my  choice,  and  know  not 
which  to  follow.  It  is  sufficient  to  say,  according  to 
the  proverb,  that  here  is  God's  plenty.'  And  soon 
after  he  goes  on  to  assert  (though  Heaven  knows  in 
terms  far  below  the  whole  truth),  the  superiority  of 

VOL.  I.  D 


50  DE    QUINCEY. 

Chaucer  to  Boccaccio.  Anrl,  in  the  meantime,  who 
was  this  eulogist  of  Chaucer?  Why,  the  man  who 
himself  was  never  equalled  upon  this  earth,  unless  by 
Chaucer,  in  the  art  of  fine  narration :  it  is  John 
Dryden  whom  we  have  been  quoting. 

Between  Chaucer  and  Homer — as  to  the  main  art 
of  narration,  as  to  the  picturesque  life  of  the  manners, 
and  as  to  the  exquisite  delineation  of  character — the 
interval  is  as  wide  as  between  Shakespeare,  in 
dramatic  power,  and  Nic.  Rowe. 

And  we  might  wind  up  this  main  chapter,  of  the 
comparison  between  Grecian  and  English  literature — 
viz.  the  chapter  on  Homer,  by  this  tight  dilemma. 
You  do  or  you  do  not  use  the  Longinian  word  v\pog  in 
the  modern  sense  of  the  sublime.  If  you  do  not,  then 
of  course  you  translate  it  in  the  Grecian  sense,  as 
explained  above ;  and  in  that  sense,  we  engage  to 
produce  many  scores  of  passages  from  Chaucer,  not 
exceeding  50  to  80  lines,  which  contain  more  of 
picturesque  simplicity,  more  tenderness,  more  fidelity 
to  nature,  more  felicity  of  sentiment,  more  animation 
of  narrative,  and  more  truth  of  character,  than  can 
be  matched  in  all  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  by  vi/zoc  you  choose  absurdly  to 
mean  sublimity  in  the  modern  sense,  then  it  will 
sufiice  for  us  that  we  challenge  you  to  the  production 
of  one  instance  which  truly  and  incontestably  em- 
bodies that  quality.*   The  burthen  of  proof  rests  upon 

*  The  description  of  Apollo  in  wi-ath  as  vvkti  ioikco,  like 
ni.t^lit,  is  a  doubtful  case.  With  respect  to  the  shield  of 
Achilles,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  general  conception  has, 
in  common  with  all  abstractions  (as  e.  g.  the  abstractions  of 
dreams,  of  prophetic  visions,  such  as  that  in  the  6  th  Mneid, 
that  to  ilacbeth,  that  shown  b}'  the  angel  Slichael  to  Adam), 


A     BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     51 

you  who  affirm,  not  upon  us  who  deny.  Meantime, 
as  a  kind  of  choke-pear,  we  leave  with  the  Homeric 
adorer  this  one  bi-ace  of  portraits,  or  hints  for  such  a 
brace,  which  we  commend  to  his  comparison,  as 
Hamlet  did  the  portraits  of  the  two  brothers  to  his 
besotted  mother.  We  are  talking  of  the  sublime  : 
that  is  our  thesis.  Now  observe  :  there  is  a  catalogue 
in  the  Iliad — there  is  a  catalogue  in  the  Paradise 
Lost.  And,  like  a  river  of  Macedon  and  of  Mon- 
mouth, the  two  catalogues  agree  in  that  one  fact — 
viz.  that  they  are  such.  But  as  to  the  rest,  we  are 
willing  to  abide  by  the  issue  of  that  one  comparison, 
left  to  the  very  dullest  sensibility,  for  the  decision  of 
the  total  question  at  issue.  And  what  is  that  ]  Not, 
Heaven  preserve  us  !  as  to  the  comparative  claims  of 
Milton  and  Homer  in  this  point  of  sublimity — for 
siu-ely  it  would  be  absurd  to  compare  him  who  has 
most  with  him  whom  we  affirm  to  have  none  at  all — 
but  whether  Homer  has  the  very  smallest  pretensions 
in  that  point.  The  result,  as  we  state  it,  is  this  : — • 
The  catalogue  of  the  ruined  angels  in  Milton,  is,  in 
itself  taken  separately,  a  perfect  poem,  with  the 
beauty,  and  the  felicity,  and  the  glory  of  a  dream. 
The  Homeric  catalogue  of  ships  is  exactly  on  a  level 
with  the  muster-roll  of  a  regiment,  the  register  of  a 
tax-gatherer,  the  catalogue  of  an  auctioneer.  Nay, 
some  catalogues  are  far  more  interesting,  and  more 
alive  with  meaning.  '  But  him  followed  fifty  black 
ships  ! ' — '  But    him    follow     seventy    black     sliips  ! ' 


something  fine  and,  in  its  own  nature,  let  the  execution  be  what 
it  may,  sublime.  But  this  part  of  the  Iliad,  we  firmly  believe 
so  be  an  interpolation  of  times  long  posterior  to  that  of  Homer. 

D   2 


52  DE    QUINCE Y. 

Faugh  !     "VVe  could  make  a  more  readable  poem  out 
of  an  lusolvent's  Balance  Sheet. 

One  other  little  susfffestion  we  could  wish  to  offer. 
Those  who  would  contend  against  the  vast  superiority 
of  Chaucer  (and  him  we  mention  chiefly  because  he 
really  has  in  excess  those  very  qualities  of  life,  motion, 
and  picturesque  simplicity,  to  which  the  Homeric 
characteristics  chiefly  tend),  ought  to  bear  in  mind 
one  startling  fact  evidently  at  war  with  the  degree  of 
what  is  claimed  for  Homer.  It  is  this  :  Chaucer  is 
carried  naturally  by  the  very  course  of  his  tales  into 
the  heart  of  domestic  life,  and  of  the  scenery  most 
favourable  to  the  movements  of  human  sensibility. 
Homer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  kept  out  of  that  sphere* 
and  is  impi'isoned  in  the  monotonies  of  a  camp  or  a 
battle-field,  equally  by  the  necessities  of  his  story, 
and  by  the  proprieties  of  Grecian  life  (which  in  fact 
are  pretty  nearly  those  of  Turkish  life  at  this  day). 
Men  and  women  meet  only  under  rare,  hurried,  and 
exclusive  circumstances.  Hence  it  is,  that  throughout 
the  entire  Iliad,  we  have  but  one  scene  in  which 
the  finest  affections  of  the  human  heart  can  find  an 
opening  for  display ;  of  course,  everybody  knows  at 
once  that  we  are  speaking  of  the  scene  between 
Hector,  Andi'omache,  and  tlie  young  Astyanax.  No 
need  for  question  here ;  it  is  Hobson's  choice  in  Greek 
literature,  when  you  are  seeking  for  the  poetry  of 
human  sensibilities.  One  such  scene  there  is,  and  no 
more ;  which,  of  itself,  is  some  reason  for  suspecting 
its  authenticity.  And,  by  the  way,  at  this  point,  it 
is  worth  while  remarking,  that  a  late  excellent  critic 
always  pronounced  the  words  applied  to  Andromache 
Zutcpvoiv  yeXaaaaa  {tearfidly  srmling,  or,  smiling  through 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    CREEK    LITERATURE,     53 

her  tears),  a  mere  Alexandrian  interpolation.  And 
why'?  Now  mark  the  reason.  Was  it  because  the 
circumstance  is  in  itself  vicious,  or  out  of  natui'el 
Not  at  all :  nothing  more  probable  or  more  interesting 
under  the  general  situation  of  peril  combined  with 
the  little  incident  of  the  infant's  alarm  at  the  plumed 
helmet.  But  any  just  taste  feels  it  to  be  out  of  the 
Homeric  key  ;  the  barbarism  of  the  age,  not  mitigated 
(as  in  Chaucer's  far  less  barbarous  age)  by  the  tender- 
ness of  Christian  sentiment,  turned  a  deaf  ear  and  a 
repulsive  aspect  to  such  beautiful  traits  of  domestic 
feeling ;  to  Homer  himself  the  whole  circumstance 
would  have  been  one  of  pure  effeminacy.  Now,  we 
recommend  it  to  the  reader's  reflection — and  let  him 
weigh  well  the  condition  under  which  that  poetry 
moves  that  cannot  indulge  a  tender  sentiment  without 
being  justly  suspected  of  adulterovis  commerce  with 
some  after  age.  This  remark,  however,  is  by  the  by ; 
having  grown  out  of  the  laKpvotv  ytXao-ctcro,  itself  a 
digression.  But,  returning  from  that  to  our  previous 
theme,  we  desire  every  candid  reader  to  ask  himself 
what  must  be  the  character,  what  the  circumscription, 
of  that  poetry  which  is  limited,  by  its  very  subject,* 
to  a  scene  of  such  intense  uniformity  as  a  battle  or  a 
camp ;  and  by  the  prevailing  spirit  of  manners  to  the 
exclusive  society  of  men.  To  make  bricks  without 
straw,  was  the  excess  even  of  Egyptian  bondage ; 
Homer  could  not  fight  up  against  the  necessities  of 

*  Bnt  tlie  Odyssey,  at  least,  it  will  be  said,  is  not  thus 
limited  :  no,  not  by  its  subject ;  because  it  carries  us  amongst 
cities  and  princes  in  a  state  of  peace  ;  but  it  is  equally  limited 
by  tlie  spirit  of  manners  ;  we  are  never  admitted  amongst 
women,  except  by  accident  (Nausicaa) — bj''  necessity  (Penelope) 
— or  by  romance  (Circe). 


5-lr  DE    QUINCE Y. 

his  age,  and  the  defects  of  its  manners.  And  the 
very  apologies  which  will  be  urged  for  liim,  drawn  as 
they  must  be  from  the  spirit  of  manners  prevalent  in 
his  era,  are  reciprocally  but  so  many  reasons  for  not 
seeking  in  him  the  kind  of  poetry  which  has  been 
ascribed  to  him  by  ignorance,  or  by  defective  sensi- 
bility, or  by  the  mere  self-interest  of  pedantry. 

From  Homer,  the  route  stretches  thus :  —  The 
Grecian  drama  lies  about  six  hundred  years  nearer 
to  the  Christian  era,  and  Pindar  lies  in  the  interval. 
Tiiese — i.  e.  the  Dramatic  and  Lyric — are  the  import- 
ant chapters  of  the  Greek  poetry ;  for  as  to  Pastoral 
poetry,  having  only  Theocritus  surviving,  and  a  very 
little  of  Bion  and  Moschus,  and  of  these  one  only 
being  of  the  least  separate  importance — we  cannot 
hold  that  department  entitled  to  any  notice  in  so 
cui'soi-y  a  review  of  the  literature,  else  we  have  mvich 
to  say  on  this  also.  Besides  that,  Theocritus  was  not 
a  natural  poet,  indigenous  to  Sicily,  but  an  artificial 
blue-stocking  ;  as  was  Callimachus  in  a  different  class. 

The  drama  we  may  place  loosely  in  the  generation 
next  before  that  of  Alexander  the  Gi^eat.  And  his 
era  may  be  best  remembered  by  noting  it  as  333 
years  b.  c.  Add  thirty  years  to  this  era — that  will 
be  the  era  of  the  Drama.  Add  a  little  more  than  a 
century,  and  that  will  be  the  era  of  Pindar.  Him, 
therefore,  we  will  notice  first. 

Now,  the  chief  thing  to  say  as  to  Pindar  is — to 
show  cause,  good  and  reasonable,  why  no  man  of 
sense  should  trouble  his  head  about  him.  There  was 
in  the  seventeenth  century  a  notion  prevalent  about 
Pindar,  the  very  contradiction  to  the  truth.  It  was 
imagined  that  he  '  had  a  demon ' ;  that   he  was  under 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     55 

a  burthen  of  prophetic  inspiration ;  that  he  was  pos- 
sessed, like  a  Hebrew  propliet  or  a  Delphic  priestess, 
with  divine  fury.  Why  was  this  thought  ] — simply 
because  no  mortal  read  him.  Laughable  it  is  to 
mention,  that  Pope,  when  a  very  young  man,  and 
writing  his  Temj^le  of  Fame  (partly  on  the  model 
of  Chaucer's),  when  he  came  to  the  great  columns  and 
their  bas-reliefs  in  that  temple,  each  of  which  is  sacred 
to  one  honoured  name,  having  but  room  in  all  for  six, 
chose  Pindar  for  one  *  of  the  six.  And  the  first  bas- 
relief  ou  Pindar's  column  is  so  pretty,  that  we  shall 
quote  it ;  especially  as  it  suggested  Gray's  car  for 
Dryden's  '  less  presumptuous  flight ! ' 

'  Foiu'  swans  sustain  a  car  of  silver  bright, 
With  heads  advanc'd,  and  pinions  stretcli'd  for  fliglit : 
Here,  like  some  furious 'prophet,  Pindar  rode, 
And  seem'd  to  labour  with  th'  iyispiring  god.' 

Then  follow  eight  lines  describing  other  bas-reliefs, 
containing  •'  the  figured  games  of  Greece '  (Olympic, 
Nemean,  &c.).  But  what  we  spoke  of  as  laughable  in 
the  whole  affair  is,  that  Master  Pope  neither  had 
then  read  one  line  of  Piadar,  nor  ever  read  one  line 
of  Pindar :  and  reason  good ;  for  at  that  time  he 
could  not  read  the  simple  Homeric  Greek ;  while  the 
Greek  of  Pindar  exceeds  all  other  Greek  in  difliculty, 
excepting,  perhaps,  a  few  amongst  the  tragic  choruses, 
which  are  difficult  for  the  very  same  reason— lyric 
ahruptness,  lyric  involution,  and  lyric  obscurity  of 
transition.  Not  having  read  Homer,  no  wonder  that 
Pope  should  place,  amongst  the  bas-reliefs  illustrating 
the    Iliad,  an   incident  which  does  not   exist  in  the 

*  The  other  five  were  Homer,  Virgil,  Horace,  Aristotle,  Cicero. 


56  DE    QUINCEY. 

Iliad*  Not  having  read  Pindar,  no  wonder  that 
Pope  shoukl  ascribe  to  Pindar  qualities  whicli  are  not 
only  imaginary,  but  in  absolute  contradiction  to  his 
true  ones.  A  more  sober  old  gentleman  does  not 
exist :  his  demoniac  possession  is  a  mere  fable.  But 
there  are  two  sufficient  arguments  for  not  reading 
him,  so  long  as  innumerable  books  of  greater  interest 
remain  unread.  First,  he  writes  upon  sul)jects  that, 
to  us,  are  mean  and  extinct — race-horses  that  have 
been  defunct  for  twenty-five  centuries,  chariots  that 
were  crazy  in  his  own  day,  and  contests  with  which 
it  is  impossible  for  vis  to  sympathise.  Then  his  digres- 
sions about  old  genealogies  are  no  whit  better  than 
his  main  theme,  nor  more  amusing  than  a  Welshman's 
pedigree.  The  best  translator  of  any  age,  Mr.  Cai-ey, 
who  translated  Dante,  has  done  what  human  skill 
could  effect  to  make  the  old  Theban  i-eadable;  but, 
after  all,  the  man  is  yet  to  come  who  has  read  Pindar, 
will  read  Pindar,  or  can  read  Pindar,  except,  indeed, 
a  translator  in  the  way  of  duty.  And  the  son  of 
Philip  himself,  though  he  bade  'spare  the  house  of 
Pindarus,'  we  vehemently  suspect,  never  read  the 
works  of  Pindarus ;  that  labour  he  left  to  some  future 
Hercules.  So  much  for  his  subjects :  but  a  second 
objection  is — his  metre.  The  hexameter,  or  heroic 
metre  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  is  delightful  to  our 
modern  ears ;  so  is  the  Iambic  metre  fortunately  of 
the  stage :  but  the  Lyric  metres  generally,  and  those 

*  Viz.  the  supposed  dragging  of  Hector  three  times  round 
Troy  by  Achilles— a  mere  post-Homeric  fable.  But  it  is 
ludicrous  to  add,  that,  in  after  years— nay,  when  nearly  at  the 
end  of  his  translation  of  the  Iliad,  in  1718— Pope  took  part  in 
a  discussion  upon  Homer's  reasons  for  ascribing  such  conduct  to 
his  hero,  seriously  arguing  the  pro  and  con  upon  a  pure  fiction. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     57 

of  Pindar  without  one  exception,  are  as  utterly  with- 
out meaning  to  us,  as  merely  chaotic  labyrinths  of 
sound,  as  Chinese  music  or  Dutch  concertos.  Need 
we  say  more  1 

Next  comes  the  drama.  But  this  is  too  weighty 
a  theme  to  be  discussed  slightly;  and  the  more  so 
because  here  only  we  willingly  concede  a  strong 
motive  for  learning  Greek ;  here,  only,  we  hold  the 
want  of  a  ready  introduction  to  be  a  serious  mis- 
fortune. Our  general  argument,  therefore,  which 
had  for  its  drift  to  depreciate  Greek,  dispenses,  in 
this  case,  witli  our  saying  anything ;  since  every  word 
we  could  say  would  be  hostile  to  our  own  purpose. 
However,  we  shall,  even  upon  this  field  of  the  Greek 
literature,  deliver  one  oracular  sentence,  tending 
neither  to  praise  nor  dispraise  it,  but  simply  to  state 
its  relations  to  the  modern,  or,  at  least,  the  English 
drama.  In  the  ancient  drama,  to  represent  it  justly, 
the  unlearned  reader  must  imagine  grand  situations, 
impressive  groups ;  in  the  modern  tumultuous  move- 
ment, a  grand  stream  of  action.  In  the  Greek  drama, 
he  must  conceive  tlie  presiding  power  to  be  Death  ; 
in  the  English,  Li/e.  What  Death?— What  Life? 
That  sort  of  death  or  of  life  locked  up  and  frozen  into 
everlasting  slumber,  wliich  we  see  in  sculpture ;  that 
sort  of  life,  of  tumult,  of  agitation,  of  tendency  to 
something  beyond,  which  we  see  in  painting.  The 
picturesque,  in  short,  domineers  over  English  tragedy ; 
the  sculpturesque,  or  the  statuesque,  over  the  Grecian. 

The  moralists,  such  as  Theogins,  the  miscellaneous 
or  didactic  poets,  such  as  Hesiod,  are  all  alike  below 
any  notice  in  a  sketch  like  this.  The  Epigrammatists, 
or  writers  of  monumental  inscriptions,  etc.,  remain ; 


58  DE    QUINCKY. 

and  they,  next  after  the  dramatic  poets,  present  the 
most  interesting  field  by  far  in  the  Greek  literature ; 
but  these  are  too  various  to  be  treated  otherwise  than 
viritim  and  in  detail. 

There  remains  the  prose  literature ;  and,  with 
the  exception  of  those  critical  writers  who  have 
written  on  rhetoric  (such  as  Hermogenes,  Dionysius 
of  Halicarnassus,  Demetrius  Phalerius,  &c.  &c.,  some 
of  whom  are  the  best  writers  extant,  on  the  mere  art 
of  constructing  sentences,  but  could  not  interest  the 
general  reader),  the  prose  writers  may  be  thus  dis- 
tributed :  1st,  the  orators;  2nd,  the  historians;  3rd, 
the  philosophers ;  4th,  the  literateurs  (such  as 
Plutarch,   Lucian,  &c.). 

As  to  the  philosophers,  of  course  there  are  only  two 
who  can  present  any  general  interest — Plato  and 
Aristotle ;  for  Xenophon  is  no  more  a  philosophic 
writer  than  our  own  Addison,  Now,  in  this  depart- 
ment, it  is  evident  that  the  matter  altogether  tran- 
scends the  manner.  No  man  will  wish  to  stvidy  a 
profound  philosopher,  but  for  some  previous  interest 
in  his  doctrines ;  and,  if  by  any  means  a  man  has 
obtained  this,  he  may  pursue  this  study  sufficiently 
through  translations.  It  is  true  that  neither  Syden- 
ham nor  Taylor  has  done  justice  to  Plato,  for  example, 
as  respects  the  colloquial  graces  of  his  style ;  but, 
when  the  object  is  purely  to  pvirsue  a  certain  course 
of  principles  and  inferences,  the  student  cannot  com- 
plain much  that  he  has  lost  the  dramatic  beauties  of 
the  dialogue,  or  the  luxuriance  of  the  style.  These 
he  was  not  then  seeking,  by  the  supposition — what  he 
did  seek,  is  still  left ;  whereas  in  poetry,  if  the  golden 
apparel  is  lost,  if  the  music  has  melted  aw'ay  from 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     59 

the  thoughts,  all,  in  fact,  is  lost.  Old  Hobbes,  or 
Ogilbie,  is  no  more  Homer  than  the  score  of  Mozart's 
Don  Giovanni  is  Mozart's  Don  Giovanni. 

If,  however,  Grecian  philosophy  presents  no  abso- 
lute temptations  to  the  attainment  of  Greek,  far  less 
does  Grecian  history.  If  you  except  later  historians 
— such  as  Diodorus,  Plutarch,  and  those  (like  Appian, 
Dionysius,  Dion  Cassius)  who  wrote  of  Roman  things 
and  Roman  pei'sons  in  Greek,  and  Polybius,  who 
comes  under  the  same  class,  at  a  much  earlier  period 
— and  none  of  whom  have  any  intei^est  of  style, 
excepting  only  Plutarch :  these  dismissed,  there  are 
but  three  who  can  rank  as  classical  Greek  historians ; 
tliree  who  can  lose  hy  translation.  Of  these  the  eldest, 
Herodotus,  is  perhaps  of  real  value.  Some  call  him 
the  father  of  history ;  some  call  him  the  father  of  lies. 
Time  and  Major  Rennel  have  done  him  ample  justice. 
Yet  here,  again,  see  how  little  need  of  Greek  for  the 
amplest  use  of  a  Greek  author.  Twenty-two  centuries 
and  more  have  passed  since  the  fine  old  man  read  his 
liistory  at  the  Grecian  games  of  Olympia.  One  man 
only  has  done  him  right,  and  put  his  enemies  under 
his  footstool ;  and  yet  this  man  had  no  Greek.  Major 
Rennel  read  Herodotus  only  in  the  translation  of 
Beloe.  He  has  told  us  so  himself.  Here,  then,  is  a 
little  fact,  my  Grecian  boys,  that  you  won't  easily  get 
over.  The  father  of  history,  the  eldest  of  prose 
writers,  has  been  first  explained,  illustrated,  justified, 
liberated  from  scandal  and  disgrace,  first  had  his 
geography  set  to  rights,  first  translated  from  the 
region  of  fabulous  romance,  and  installed  in  his 
cathedral  chair,  as  Dean  (or  eldest)  of  historians, 
by  a    military  man,  who    had  no  more  Greek  than 


60  DE    QUINX'EY. 

Shakspeare,  or  than  we  (perhaps  you,  reader)  of  the 
Kalmuck. 

Next  comes  Thucydides.  He  is  the  second  in  order 
of  time  amongst  the  Grecian  historians  who  survive, 
and  the  first  of  those  (a  class  which  Mr.  Southey,  the 
laureate,  always  speaks  of  as  the  corrupters  of  genu- 
ine history)  who  affect  to  ti-eat  it  philosophically. 
If  the  philosophic  histoi-ians  are  not  always  so 
faithless  as  Mr.  Southey  alleges,  they  are,  however, 
always  guilty  of  dulness.  Commend  us  to  one  pictur- 
esque, garrulous  old  fellow,  like  Froissart,  or  Philip 
de  Comines,  or  Bishop  Burnet,  before  all  the  phil- 
osophic prosers  that  ever  prosed.  These  picturesque 
men  will  lie  a  little  now  and  then,  for  the  sake  of 
effect — but  so  will  the  philosophers.  Even  Bishop 
Burnet,  who,  by  the  way,  was  hardly  so  much  a  pic- 
turesque as  an  anecdotal  historian,  was  famous  for 
his  gift  of  lying ;  so  diligently  had  he  cultivated  it. 
And  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth  told  a  noble  lord, 
when  inquiring  into  the  truth  of  a  particular  fact 
stated  by  the  very  reverend  historian,  that  he  was 
notorious  in  Charles  the  Second's  court,  and  that  no 
man  believed  a  word  he  said.  But  now  Thucydides, 
though  writing  about  his  own  time,  and  doubtless 
embellishing  by  fictions  not  less  than  his  more  amus- 
ing brethren,  is  as  dull  as  if  he  prided  himself  on 
veracity.  Nay,  he  tells  us  no  secret  anecdotes  of  the 
times — surely  there  must  have  been  many ;  and  this 
proves  to  us,  that  he  was  a  low  fellow  without  politi- 
cal connections,  and  that  he  never  had  been  behind 
the  curtain.  Now,  what  business  had  such  a  man  to 
set  himself  up  for  a  writer  of  history  and  a  speculator 
on  politics  1     Besides,  his  history  is  imperfect ;  and. 


A    nniEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     61 

suppose  it  were  not,  what  is  its  subject  ?  Why  simply 
one  single  war ;  a  war  which  lasted  twenty-seven 
years ;  but  which,  after  all,  through  its  whole  course 
was  enlivened  by  only  two  events  worthy  to  enter 
into  general  history — viz.  the  plague  of  Athens,  and 
the  miserable  licking  which  the  Athenian  invaders 
received  in  Sicily.  This  dire  overthrow  dished 
Athens  out  and  out ;  for  one  generation  to  come, 
there  was  an  end  of  Athenian  domination ;  and  that 
arrogant  state,  under  the  yoke  of  their  still  baser 
enemies  of  Sparta,  learned  expei-imentally  what  were 
the  evils  of  a  foreign  conquest.  There  was  therefore, 
in  the  domination  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  something 
to  '  point  a  moral '  in  the  Peloponnesian  war  :  it  was 
the  judicial  reaction  of  martial  tyranny  and  foreign 
oppression,  such  as  we  of  this  generation  have  beheld 
in  the  double  conquest  of  Paris  by  insulted  and  out- 
raged Christendom.  But  nothing  of  all  this  Avill  be 
found  in  Thucydides — he  is  as  cool  as  a  cucumber 
upon  every  act  of  atrocity  ;  whether  it  be  the  bloody 
abuse  of  power,  or  the  bloody  retribution  from  the 
worm  that,  being  trampled  on  too  long,  turns  at  last 
to  sting  and  to  exterminate — all  alike  he  enters  in  his 
daybook  and  his  ledger,  posts  them  up  to  the  account 
of  brutal  Spartan  or  polished  Athenian,  with  no  more 
expression  of  his  feelings  (if  he  had  any)  than  a  mer- 
chant making  out  an  invoice  of  puncheons  that  are  to 
steal  away  men's  wits,  or  of  frankincense  and  myrrh 
that  are  to  ascend  in  devotion  to  the  saints.  Hero- 
dotus is  a  fine,  old,  genial  boy,  that,  like  Froissart  or 
some  of  the  crusading  historians,  kept  himself  in 
health  and  jovial  spirits  by  travelling  about ;  nor  did 
he  confine  himself  to  Greece  or  the  Grecian  islands ; 


62  DE    QUINCEY. 

but  he  went  to  Egypt,  got  boixsy  in  the  Pyramid  of 
Cheops,  ate  a  beef-steak  in  the  hanging-gardens  of 
Babylon,  and  listened  to  no  sailors'  yarns  at  the 
Piraeus,  which  doubtless,  before  his  time,  had  been 
the  sole  authority  for  Grecian  legends  concerning 
foreign  lands.  But,  as  to  Thucydides,  our  own 
belief  is,  that  he  lived  like  a  monk  shut  up  in  his 
museum  or  study ;  and  that,  at  the  very  utmost,  he 
may  have  gone  in  the  steamboat  *  to  Corfu  {i.  e. 
Corcyra),  because  that  was  the  island  which  occasioned 
the  i"ow  of  the  Peloponnesian  war. 

Xenophon  now  is  quite  another  sort  of  man ;  he 
could  use  his  pen ;  but  also  he  could  use  his  sword  ; 
and  (when  need  was)  liis  heels,  in  running  away. 
His  Grecian  history  of  course  is  a  mere  fraction  of 
the  general  history ;  and,  moreover,  our  own  belief, 
founded  u}  on  the  differences  of  the  style,  is,  that  the 
work  now  received  for  his  must  be  spurious.  But  in 
this  place  the  question  is  not  worth  discussing.  Two 
works  remain,  professedly  historical,  which,  beyond  a 
doubt,  are  his ;  and  one  of  them  the  most  interesting 
prose  work  by  much  which  Athens  has  bequeathed 
us ;  though,  by  the  way,  Xenophon  was  living  in  a 
sort  of  elegant  exile  at  a  chateau  in  Thessaly,  and  not 
under  Athenian  protection,  when  he  wrote  it.  Both 
of  his  great  works  relate  to  a  Persian  Cyrus,  but  to 
a  Cyrus  of  different  centviries.  The  Cyropcadia  is 
a  romance,  pretty  much  on  the  plan  of  Fenelon's 
Telemaque,   only  (Heaven   be  praised !)   not    so   furi- 

*  '  In  the  steamboat ! '  Yes.  reader,  the  steamboat.  It  is 
clear  that  there  was  one  in  Homer's  time.  See  the  art. 
Phmacian  in  the  Odyssey :  if  it  paid  then,  d  fortiori  six  hun- 
dred years  after.  The  only  point  unknown  about  it,  is  the 
captain's  name  and  the  state-cabin  fares. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     63 

ously  apoplectic.  It  pursues  the  great  Cyrus,  the 
founder  of  the  Persian  empire,  the  Cyrus  of  the 
Jewish  prophets,  from  his  infancy  to  his  death-bed ; 
and  describes  evidently  not  any  real  prince,  according 
to  any  authentic  record  of  his  life,  but,  upon  some 
basis  of  hints  and  vague  traditions,  improves  the 
actual  Cyrus  into  an  ideal  fiction  of  a  sovereign  and 
a  militaiy  conqueror,  as  he  ought  to  be.  One  thing 
only  we  shall  say  of  this  work,  though  no  admirers 
ourselves  of  the  twaddle  which  Xenophon  elsewhere 
gives  us  as  philosophic  memorabilia,  that  the  episode 
of  Abradates  and  Panthea  (especially  the  behaviour 
of  Panthea  after  the  death  of  her  beloved  hero,  and 
the  incident  of  the  dead  man's  hand  coming  away  on 
Cyrus  grasping  it)  exceeds  for  pathos  everything  in 
Grecian  literature,  always  excepting  the  Greek  drama, 
and  comes  nearest  of  anything,  throughout  Pagan 
literatui'c,  to  the  impassioned  simplicity  of  Scripture, 
in  its  tale  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren.  The  other 
historical  work  of  Xenophon  is  the  Anabasis.  The 
meaning  of  the  title  is  the  going-iip  or  ascent — viz.  of 
Cyrus  the  younger.  This  prince  was  the  younger 
brother  of  the  reigning  king  Artaxerxes,  nearly  two 
centuries  from  Cyrus  the  Great ;  and,  from  opportu- 
nity rather  than  a  better  title,  and  because  his  mother 
and  his  vast  provincial  government  furnished  him 
with  royal  treasures  able  to  hire  an  army,  most  of 
all,  because  he  was  richly  endowed  by  nature  with 
personal  gifts — took  it  into  his  head  that  he  would 
dethrone  his  brother ;  and  the  more  so,  because  he 
was  only  his  half-brother.  His  chance  was  a  good 
one  :  he  had  a  Grecian  army,  and  one  from  the  very 
elite  of  Greece ;  whilst  the  Persian  king  had  but  a 


64  DE    QUINCEY. 

small  corps  of  Grecian  auxiliaries,  long  enfeebled 
by  Persian  effeminacy  and  Persian  intei-marriages. 
Xenophou  was  personally  present  in  this  expedition. 
And  the  catastrophe  was  most  singular,  such  as  does 
not  occur  once  in  a  thousand  years.  The  cavalry  of 
the  great  King  retreated  before  the  Greeks  continu- 
ally, no  doubt  from  policy  and  secret  orders ;  so  that, 
wlien  a  pitched  battle  became  inevitable,  the  foreign 
invaders  found  themselves  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
land,  and  close  upon  the  Euphrates.  The  battle  was 
fought :  the  foreigners  were  victorious :  they  were 
actually  singing  Te  Deiom  or  lo  Pcean  for  their  victory, 
when  it  was  discovered  that  their  leader,  the  native 
prince  in  whose  behalf  they  had  conquered,  was 
missing ;  and  soon  after,  that  he  was  dead.  What 
was  to  be  done  1  The  man  who  should  have  improved 
their  victory,  and  placed  them  at  his  own  right  band 
when  on  the  throne  of  Persia,  was  no  more ;  key  they 
had  none  to  unlock  the  great  fortresses  of  the  empire, 
none  to  unloose  the  enthusiasm  of  the  native  popula- 
tion. Yet  such  was  the  desperation  of  their  circum- 
stances, that  a  coup-de-main  on  the  capital  seemed 
their  best  chance.  The  whole  army  was  and  felt 
itself  a  forlorn  hope.  To  go  forward  was  desperate, 
but  to  go  back  much  more  so ;  for  they  had  a  thou- 
sand rivers  without  bridges  in  their  i-ear ;  and,  if 
they  set  their  faces  in  that  direction,  they  would 
have  300,000  light  cavalry  upon  their  flanks,  besides 
nations  innumerable — 

'  Dusk  faces  with  white  silken  turbans  wreath'cl ' ; 

fierce   fellows  who   understood  no  Greek,  and,  what 
was  worse,  no  joking,  but  well  understood  the  use  of 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     65 

the  scymitar.  Bad  as  things  were,  they  soon  became 
worse ;  for  the  chiefs  of  the  Grecian  army,  being 
foolish  enough  to  accept  a  dinner  invitation  from  the 
Persian  commander-in-chief,  were  assassinated ;  and 
the  words  of  Milton  became  intelligible — that  in  the 
lowest  deep  a  lower  deep  had  opened  to  destroy  them. 
In  this  dilemma,  Xenophon,  the  historian  of  the 
expedition,  was  raised  to  a  principal  command ;  and 
by  admirable  skill  he  led  back  the  army  by  a  different 
route  to  the  Black  Sea,  on  the  coast  of  which  he 
knew  that  there  were  Grecian  colonies  :  and  from  one 
of  these  he  obtained  shipping,  in  which  he  coasted 
along  (when  he  did  not  march  by  land)  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles.  This  was  the 
famous  retreat  of  the  ten  thousand  ;  and  it  shows 
how  much  defect  of  literary  skill  there  was  in  those 
days  amongst  Grecian  autliors,  that  the  title  of  the 
book.  The  Going  Up,  does  not  apply  to  the  latter 
and  more  interesting  seven-eighths  of  the  account. 
The  Going  Up  is  but  the  preparation  or  preface  to 
the  Going  Down,  the  Anabasis  to  the  Katabasis,  in 
which  latter  part  it  is  that  Xenophon  plays  any  con- 
spicuous part.  A  great  political  interest,  however, 
over  and  above  the  personal  interest,  attaches  to  this 
expedition :  for  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  to  this 
proof  of  weakness  in  the  Persian  empire,  and  perhaps 
to  this,  as  recorded  by  Xenophon,  was  due  the  expe- 
dition of  Alexander  in  the  next  generation,  which 
changed  the  face  of  the  world. 

The  literateurs,  as  we  have  styled  Plutarch  and 
Lucian,  though  far  removed  from  the  true  classical 
era,  being  both  posterior  to  Christianity,  are  truly 
interesting.     And,  for  Lucian  in  particular,  though 

VOL.   I.  K 


66  DE    QUINCEY. 

he  is  known  by  reputation  only  as  a  humorous  and 
sneering  writer,  we  can  say,  upon  our  personal  know- 
ledge, that  there  are  passages  of  more  terrific  effect, 
more  German,  and  approaching  to  the  sublime,  than 
anywhere  else  in  Greek  literature,  out  of  the  ti-agic 
poets.  Of  Plutarch  we  need  hardly  speak ;  one  part 
of  his  voluminous  works — viz.  his  biographies  of 
Greek  and  Roman  leaders  in  arts  *  and  arms — being 
so  familiar  to  all  nations ;  and  having  been  selected 
by  Rousseau  as  the  book  for  him  who  should  be 
limited  (or,  like  Collins  the  poet,  should  limit  himself) 
to  one  book  only — a  foolish  choice  undoubtedly,  but 
still  arguing  great  range  of  resources  in  Plutarch, 
that  he  should  be  thought  of  after  so  many  myriads  of 
modern  books  had  widened  the  range  of  selection. 
Meantime,  the  reader  is  not  to  foi'get  that,  whatever 
may  be  his  powers  of  amusement,  a  more  inaccurate 
or  faithless  author  as  to  dates,  and,  indeed,  in  all 
matters  of  research,  does  not  exist  than  Plutarch.  We 
make  it  a  rule,  whenever  we  see  Flut.  at  the  bottom 
of  a  dictionary  article,  as  the  authority  on  which  it 
rests,  to  put  the  better  half  down  as  a  bouncer. 
And,  in  fact,  Joe  Miller  is  quite  as  good  authority 
for  English  history  as  Plutarch  for  Roman. 

Now  remain  the  orators ;  and  of  these  we  have  a 
right  to  speak,  for  we  have  read  them ;  and,  believe 
us,  reader,  not  above  one  or  two  men  in  a  generation 
have.     If  the  Editor  would  allow  us  room,  we  would 

*  'In  arts,'  we  say,  because  great  orators  are  amongst  his 
heroes  ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  very  questionable  whether,  simply 
as  orators,  Phitarch  would  have  noticed  them.  They  were  also 
statesmen  ;  and  Mitford  always  treats  Demosthenes  as  first  lord 
of  the  treasury  and  premier.  Plutarch  records  no  poet,  no 
artist,  however  brilliant. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE,     67 

gladly  contrast  them  with  modern  orators ;  and  we 
could  easily  show  how  prodigious  are  the  advantages 
of  modern  orators  in  every  point  which  can  enter 
into  a  comparison.  But  to  what  purpose?  Even 
modern  orators,  with  all  the  benefit  of  modern  inter- 
est, and  of  allusions  everywhere  intelligible,  are  not 
read  in  any  generation  after  their  own,  pulpit  orators 
only  being  excepted.  So  that,  if  the  gods  had  made 
our  reader  a  Grecian,  surely  he  would  never  so  far 
misspend  his  precious  time,  and  squander  his  precious 
intellect  upon  old  dusty  quarrels,  never  of  more  value 
to  a  philosopher  than  a  tempest  in  a  wash-hand  bason, 
but  now  stutfed  with  obsciu-ities  which  no  man  can 
explain,  and  with  lies  to  which  no  man  can  bring  the 
counter-statemant.  But  this  would  furnish  matter 
for  a  separate  paper. 


No.    II.— THE   GREEK   ORATORS. 

Now,  let  us  come  to  the  orators.  Isocrates,  the 
eldest  of  those  who  have  survived,  is  a  mere  scholastic 
rhetorician :  for  he  was  a  timid  man,  and  did  not 
dare  to  confront  the  terrors  of  a  stormy  political 
audience ;  and  hence,  though  he  lived  about  an  entire 
century,  he  never  once  addi-essed  the  Athenian 
citizens.  It  is  true,  that,  although  no  bond  fide  orator 
— for  he  never  spoke  in  any  usual  acceptation  of  that 
word,  and,  as  a  consequence,  never  had  an  opportunity 
of  replying,  which  only  can  bring  forward  a  man's 
talents  as  a  debater — still  he  employed  his  pen  upon 
real  and  upon  existing  questions  of  public  policy ; 
and    did    not,    as    so  many  genex'ations   of   chamber 


68  DE    QUINCEY. 

rhetoricians  continued  to  do  in  Greece,  confine  his 
powei's  to  imaginary  cases  of  political  difficulty,  or 
(what  were  tantamount  to  imaginary)  cases  fetched 
up  fi'om  the  long-past  ei'a  of  King  Priam,  or  the  still 
earlier  era  of  the  Seven  Chiefs  warring  against  the 
Seven-gated  Thebes  of  Boeotia,  or  the  half-fabulous 
era  of  the' Argonauts.  Isocrates  was  a  man  of  sense — 
a  patriot  in  a  temperate  way — and  with  something  of 
a  feeling  for  Greece  generally,  not  merely  a  champion 
of  Athens.  His  heart  was  given  to  politics  :  and,  in 
an  age  when  heavy  clouds  were  gathering  over  the 
independence  and  the  civil  grandeur  of  his  country, 
he  had  a  disinterested  anxiety  for  drawing  off  the 
lightning  of  the  approaching  storms  by  pacific  coun- 
sels. Compared,  therefore,  with  the  common  mer- 
cenary orators  of  the  Athenian  forum — who  made  a 
regular  trade  of  promoting  mischief,  by  inflaming  the 
pride,  jealousy,  vengeance,  or  the  martial  instincts  of 
a  '  fierce  democracy,'  and,  generally  speaking,  with  no 
views,  high  or  low,  sound  or  unsound,  that  looked 
beyond  the  momentary  profit  to  themselves  from  thus 
pandering  to  the  thoughtless  nationality  of  a  most 
sensitive  people — Isocrates  is  entitled  to  our  respect. 
His  writings  have  also  a  separate  value,  as  memorials 
of  political  transactions  from  which  the  historian  has 
gathered  many  useful  hints ;  and,  pei'haps,  to  a  dili- 
gent search,  they  might  yield  moi-e.  But,  considered 
as  an  orator — if  that  title  can  be,  with  any  propriety, 
allowed  to  one  who  declaimed  only  in  his  closet — one 
who,  in  relation  to  public  affairs,  was  what,  in  Eng- 
land, when  speaking  of  pi-actical  jurisprudence,  we 
call  a  Chamber  Counsel — Isocrates  is  languid,  and 
with  little  of  anything  characteristic  in  his  manner  to 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     69 

justify  a  separate  consideration.  It  is  remarkable 
that  he,  beyond  all  other  rhetoricians  of  that  era, 
cultivated  the  rhythmns  of  his  periods.  And  to  this 
object  he  sacrificed  not  only  an  enormity  of  time,  but, 
I  have  no  doubt,  in  many  cases,  the  freedom  and 
natural  movement  of  the  thoughts.  My  I'eason,  how- 
ever, for  noticing  this  peculiarity  in  Isocrates,  is  by 
way  of  fixing  the  attention  upon  the  superioi"ity,  even 
artificial  ornaments,  of  downright  practical  business 
and  the  realities  of  political  strife,  over  the  torpid 
atmosphere  of  a  study  or  a  school.  Cicero,  long  after, 
had  the  same  passion  for  numerositas,  and  the  full, 
pompous  rotundity  of  cadence.  But  in  Cicero,  all 
habits  and  all  faculties  were  nursed  by  the  daily 
practice  of  life  and  its  impassioned  realities,  in  the 
forvtm  or  in  the  senate.  What  is  the  consequence? 
Why  this — that,  whereas  in  the  most  laboured  per- 
formance of  Isocrates  (which  cost  him,  I  think,  one 
whole  decennium,  or  period  of  ten  years),  few  modern 
ears  are  sensible  of  any  striking  art,  or  any  great 
result  of  harmony ;  in  Cicero,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
fine,  sonorous  modulations  of  his  periodic  style,  are 
delightful  to  the  dullest  ear  of  any  European.  Such 
are  the  advantages  from  real  campaigns,  from  the 
unsimulated  strife  of  actual  stormy  life,  over  the 
torpid  dreams  of  what  the  Romans  called  an  umhratic  * 
experience. 

*  'Umbratic'  I  have  perhaps  elsewhere  drawn  the  attention 
of  readers  to  the  peculiar  effects  of  climate,  in  shaping  the  modes 
of  our  thinking  and  imaging.  A  life  of  inertia,  which  retreats 
from  the  dust  and  toil  of  actual  experience,  we  (who  represent 
the  idea  of  effeminacy  more  naturally  by  the  image  of  shrinking 
from  cold)  call  a  chimney-corner  of  a  fireside  experience  ;  but 
the  Romans,  to  whom  the  same  effeminacy  more  easily  fell  under 


70  DE    QUINCEY. 

Isocrates  I  have  noticed  as  the  oldest  of  the  surviv- 
ing Greek  orators  :  Demosthenes,  of  course,  claims  a 
notice  more  emphatically,  as,  by  universal  consent  of 
Athens,  and  aftei^wards  of  Rhodes,  of  Rome,  and 
other  impartial  judges,  the  greatest,  or,  at  least,  the 
most  comprehensively  great.  For,  by  the  way,  it 
must  not  be  forgotten — though  modern  critics  do 
forget  this  rather  important  fact  in  weighing  the 
reputation  of  Demosthenes — he  was  not  esteemed,  in 
his  own  day,  as  the  greatest  in  that  particular  quality 
of  energy  and  demoniac  power  (^€iv6ti]q)  which  is 
generally  assumed  to  have  been  his  leading  character- 
istic and  hm  forte  ;  not  only  by  comparison  with  his 
own  compatriots,  but  even  with  Cicero  and  the  greatest 
men  of  the  Roman  bar.  It  was  not  of  Demosthenes 
that  the  Athenians  were  accustomed  to  say,  '  he 
thunders  and  lightens,'  but  of  Pericles,  an  elder 
orator ;  and  even  amongst  the  written  oratory  of 
Greece,  which  still  survives  (for  as  to  the  speeches 
ascribed  to  Pericles  by  Thucydides,  I  take  it  for 
granted  that,  as  usual,  these  were  mere  forgeries  of 
the  historian),  there  is  a  portion  which  perhaps  exceeds 
Demosthenes  in  the  naked  quality  of  vehemence. 
But  this,  I  admit,  will  not  impeach  his  supremacy ; 
for  it  is  probable,  that  wherever  an  orator  is  charac- 
terised exclusively  by  turbulent  power,  or  at  least 
remembered  chiefly  for  that  quality,  all  the  other 
numerous  graces  of  eloquence  were  wanting  to  that 
man,  or  existed  only  in  a  degree  which  made  no 
equipoise  to  his  insulated  gift  of  Jovian  terror.     The 

the  idea  of  shrinking  from  the  heat  of  the  sini,  called  it  an 
experience  won  in  the  shade  ;  and  a  mere  scholastic  student, 
they  called  an  icmhraticu,s  doctor. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     71 

Gracchi,  amongst  the  Roman  orators,  were  probably 
more  properly  '  sons  of  thunder '  than  Crassus  or 
Cicero,  or  even  than  Ca3sar  himself,  whose  oratory,  by 
the  way,  was,  in  this  respect,  like  his  own  character 
and  infinite  accomplishments ;  so  that  even  by  Cicero 
it  is  rarely  cited  without  the  epithet  of  splendid, 
magnificent,  &c.  We  must  suppose,  therefore,  tliat 
neither  Cicero  nor  Demosthenes  was  held  to  be  at  the 
head  of  their  respective  fields  in  Rome  and  Athens,  in 
right  of  any  absolute  pre-eminence  in  the  one  leading 
power  of  an  orator — viz.  native  and  fervent  vigour — 
but  in  right  of  a  large  comprehensive  harmony  of 
gifts,  leaving  possibly  to  some  other  orators,  elder  or 
rival  to  themselves,  a  superiority  in  each  of  an  oratoi's 
talents  taken  apart,  but  claiming  the  supremacy, 
nevertheless,  upon  the  whole,  by  the  systematic  union 
of  many  qvialities  tending  to  one  result :  pleasing  the 
taste  by  the  harmonious  coup  d'osil  from  the  total 
assemblage,  and  also  adapting  itself  to  a  far  larger 
variety  of  situations ;  for,  after  all,  the  ««ere  son  of 
thunder  is  disarmed,  and  apt  to  become  ridiculous,  if 
you  strip  him  of  a  passionate  cause,  of  a  theme  satu- 
rated with  human  strife,  and  of  an  excitable  or 
tempestuous  audience. 

Such  an  audience,  however,  it  will  be  said  that 
Demosthenes  had,  and  sometimes  (but  not  very  often 
in  those  orations  which  survive)  such  a  theme.  As 
to  his  audience,  certainly  it  was  all  that  could  be 
wished  in  point  of  violence  and  combustible  passion  ; 
but  also  it  was  something  more.  A  mighty  advantage 
it  is,  doubtless,  to  an  orator,  when  he  sees  and  hears 
his  own  kindling  passions  instantaneously  reflected  in 
the  blazing  eyes  and  fiery  shouts  {the/remit7ts)  of  his 


72  DE   QUINCEY. 

audience — when  he  sees  a  whole  people,  personally  or 
by  deputation,  swayed  backwards  and  forwards,  like 
a  field  of  corn  in  a  breeze,  by  the  movements  of  his 
own  appeals.  But,  unfortunately,  in  the  Athenian 
audience,  the  ignorance,  the  headstrong  violence  of 
prejudice,  the  arrogance,  and,  above  all,  the  levity  of 
the  national  mind — presented,  to  an  oi-ator  the  most 
favourite,  a  scene  like  that  of  an  ocean  always  rocking 
with  storms ;  like  a  wasp  always  angry ;  like  a 
lunatic,  always  coming  out  of  a  passion  or  preparing 
to  go  into  one.  Well  might  Demosthenes  prepare 
himself  by  sea-shore  practice  ;  in  which  I  conceive 
that  his  purpose  must  have  been,  not  so  much 
(according  to  the  common  notion)  to  overcrow  the 
noise  of  the  forum,  as  to  stand  fire  (if  I  may  so 
express  it)  against  the  uproarious  demonstrations  of 
mob  fury. 

This  quality  of  an  Athenian  audience  must  very 
seriously  have  interfered  with  the  intellectual  display 
of  an  orator.  Not  a  word  could  he  venture  to  say  in 
the  way  of  censure  towards  the  public  will — not  even 
hypothetically  to  insinuate  a  fault ;  not  a  syllable 
could  he  utter  even  in  the  way  of  dissent  from  the 
favourite  speculations  of  the  moment.  If  he  did, 
instantly  a  roar  of  menaces  recalled  him  to  a  sense 
even  of  personal  danger.  And,  again,  the  mere 
vivacity  of  his  audience,  requiring  perpetual  amuse- 
ment and  variety,  compelled  a  man,  as  great  even  as 
Demosthenes,  to  curtail  his  arguments,  and  rarely, 
indeed,  to  pursue  a  theme  with  the  requisite  fulness 
of  development  or  illusti-ation ;  a  point  in  which  the 
superior  dignity  and  the  far  less  fluctuating  mobility  of 
the  Roman  mind  gave  an  immense  advantage  to  Cicero. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     73 

Demosthenes,  iu  spite  of  all  the  weaknesses  which 
have  been  arrayed  against  his  memory  by  the  hatred 
of  his  contempoi'aries,  or  by  the  anti-republican  feel- 
ings of  such  men  as  Mitford,  was  a  great  man  and 
an  honest  man.     He  rose  above  his  countrymen.     He 
desj^ised,    in   some    measure,    his   audience ;   and,    at 
length,  in  the  palmy  days  of  his  influence,  he  would 
insist  on  being  heard ;  he  would  insist  on  telling  the 
truth,  however  unacceptable ;  he  would  not,  like  the 
great  rout  of   venal   haranguers,  lay   any  flattering 
unction  to  the  capital  distempers  of  the  public  mind  ; 
he  would  point  out  their  errors,  and  warn  them  of 
their  perils.     But  this  upright  character  of  the  man, 
victorious  over  his  constitutional  timidity,  does  but 
the   more   brightly  illustrate   the  local  law  and  the 
tyranny  of  the  public  feeling.     How  often  do  we  find 
him,  when  on  the  brink  of  uttering  '  odious  truth,' 
obliged  to  pause,  and  to  propitiate  his  audience  with 
deprecatory  phrases,  entreating  them  to  give  him  time 
for  utterance,  not  to  yell  him  down  before  they  had 
heard  his  sentence  to  the  end.    M/j  Qopvt,tiTE — '  Gentle- 
men of  Athens !  for  the  love  of  God,  do  not  make  an 
uproar  at  what  I  am  going  to  say  !     Gentlemen  of 
Athens  !  humbly  I  beseech  you  to  let  me  finish  my 
sentence ! '     Such   are    his   continual  appeals   to  the 
better   feelings    of   his   audience.     Now,    it   is   very 
evident  that,  in  such  circumstances,  no  man  could  do 
justice  to  any  subject.     At  least,  when  speaking  not 
before  a  tribunal  of  justice,  but  before  the  people  in 
council  assembled — that  is,  in  effect,  on  his  greatest 
stage  of  all — Demosthenes  (however  bold  at  times, 
and  restive  in  a  matter  which  he  held  to  be  paramount) 
was   required    to    bend,  and    did    bend,  to  the  local 


74  DE    QUINCEY. 

genius  of  democracy,  reinforced  by  a  most  mercurial 
temperament.  The  very  air  of  Attica,  combined  with 
great  political  power,  kept  its  natives  in  a  state  of 
habitual  intoxication  ;  and  even  wise  men  would  have 
had  some  difficulty  in  mastering,  as  it  affected 
themselves,  the  permanent  bias  towards  caprice  and 
insolence. 

Is  this  state  of  things  at  all  taken  into  account  in 
our  modern  critiques  upon  Demosthenes  1  The  up- 
shot of  what  I  can  find  in  most  modern  lecturers  upon 
rhetoric  and  style,  French  or  English,  Avhen  speaking 
of  Demosthenes,  is  this  notable  simile,  by  way  of 
representing  the  final  effect  of  his  eloquence — '  that, 
like  a  mountain  torrent,  swollen  by  melting  snow,  or 
by  rain,  it  carries  all  things  before  it.'  Prodigiously 
original !  and  exceedingly  discriminative  !  As  if  such 
an  illustration  would  not  equally  represent  the  effect 
of  a  lyrical  poem,  of  Mozart's  music,  of  a  stormy 
chorus,  or  any  other  form  whatever  of  impassioned 
vehemence.  Meantime,  I  suspect  grievously  that  not 
one  of  these  critics  has  ever  read  a  paragraph  of 
Demosthenes.  Nothing  do  you  ever  find  quoted  but 
a  few  notorious  passages  about  Philip  of  Macedon, 
and  the  too-famous  oath,  by  the  manes  of  those  that 
died  at  Marathon.  I  call  it  too  famous,  because  (like 
Addison's  comparison  of  Mai^lborough,  at  Blenheim, 
to  the  angel  in  thf^  storm — of  which  a  schoolmaster 
then  living  said,  that  nine  out  of  every  ten  boys 
woviM  have  hit  upon  it  in  a  school  exercise)  it  has  no 
peculiar  boldness,  and  must  have  occiu'red  to  every 
Athenian,  of  any  sensibility,  every  day  of  his  life. 
Hear,  on  the  other  hand,  a  modern  oath,  and  (what 
is  most  remarkable)  an  oath  sworn  in  the  pulpit.     A 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     75 

dissenting  clergyman  (I  believe,  a  Baptist),  preaching 
at  Cambridge,  and  having  occasion  to  affirm  or  to 
deny  something  or  other,  upon  his  general  confidence 
in  the. grandeur  of  man's  nature,  the  magnificence  of 
his  conceptions,  the  immensity  of  his  aspirations,  &c., 
delivered  himself  thus  : — '  By  the  greatness  of  human 
ideals — by  the  greatness  of  human  aspirations — by 
the  immortality  of  human  creations — hy  the  Iliad — 

hy   the    Odyssey ' Now,    that  ivas  bold,  startling, 

sublime.  But,  in  the  other  case,  neither  was  the  oath 
invested  with  any  great  pomp  of  imagery  or  expres- 
sion ;  nor,  if  it  had — which  is  more  to  the  purpose^ 
was  such  an  oath  at  all  representative  of  the  peculiar 
manner  belonging  to  Demosthenes.  It  is  always  a 
rude  and  inartificial  style  of  criticism  to  cite  from  an 
author  that  which,  whether  fine  or  not  in  itself,  is  no 
fair  specimen  of  his  ordinary  style. 

What  then  is  the  characteristic  style  of  Demos- 
thenes?— It  is  one  which  grew  naturally,  as  did  his 
defects  (by  which  I  mean  faults  of  omission,  in 
contradiction  to  such  as  are  positive),  from  the 
composition  of  his  audience.  His  audience,  compre- 
hending so  much  ignorance,  and,  above  all,  so  much 
high-spirited  impatience,  being,  in  fact,  alwa^'s  on  tlie 
fret,  kept  the  orator  always  on  the  fret.  Hence 
arose  short  sentences  ;  hence,  the  impossibility  of  the 
long,  voluminous  sweeps  of  beautiful  rhytlmius  which 
we  find  in  Cicero;  hence,  the  animated  form  of 
apostrophe  and  crowded  interrogations  addressed  to 
the  audience.  This  gives,  undoubtedly,  a  spirited  and 
animated  character  to  the  style  of  Demosthenes  ;  but 
it  robs  him  of  a  large  variety  of  structure  applied  to 
the  logic,  or  the  embellishment,  or  the  music  of  Ins 


76  DE   QUINCEY. 

composition.  His  style  is  full  of  life,  but  not  (like 
Cicero's)  full  of  pomp  and  continuous  grandeur.  On 
the  contrary,  as  the  necessity  of  rousing  attention,  or 
of  sustaining  it,  obliged  the  Attic  orator  to  rely  too 
much  on  the  personality  of  direct  question  to  the 
audience,  and  to  use  brief  sentences,  so  also  the  same 
impatient  and  fretful  irritability  forbade  him  to  linger 
much  upon  an  idea — to  theorise,  to  speculate,  or, 
generally,  to  quit  the  direct  business  path  of  the 
question  then  under  consideration — no  matter  for 
what  purpose  of  beauty,  dignity,  instruction,  or  even 
of  ultimate  effect.  In  all  things,  the  immediate — the 
instant — the  jyrcesens prcesentissimum,  was  kept  steadily 
before  the  eye  of  the  Athenian  orator,  by  the  mere 
coercion  of  self-interest. 

And  hence,  by  the  way,  arises  one  most  important 
feature  of  distinction  between  Grecian  oratory  (politi- 
cal oratory  at  least)  on  the  one  hand,  and  Roman  (to 
which,  in  this  point,  we  may  add  British)  on  the 
other.  A  Roman  lawyer,  senator,  or  demagogue, 
even,  under  proper  restrictions — a  British  member  of 
parliament — or  even  a  candidate  from  the  hustings — 
but,  most  assuredly,  and  by  the  evidence  of  many  a 
splendid  example,  an  advocate  addressing  a  jury — 
may  embellish  his  oration  with  a  wide  circuit  of 
historical,  or  of  antiquarian,  nay,  even  speculative 
discussion.  Every  Latin  scholar  will  remember  the 
leisurely  and  most  facetious,  the  good-natured  and 
respectful,  yet  keenly  satiiic,  picture  which  the  great 
Roman  barrister  draws  of  the  Stoic  philosophy,  by 
way  of  rowing  old  Cato,  who  professed  that  philosophy 
with  too  little  indulgence  for  venial  human  errors. 
The^'wcZtces — that  is,  in  effect,  the  jury — were  tickled 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     77 

to  the  soul  by  seeing  the  grave  Marcus  Cato  badgered 
with  this  fine  razor-like  raillery ;  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that,  by  flattering  the  self-respect  of  the  jury, 
in  presuming  them  susceptible  of  so  mvich  wit  from  a 
liberal  kind  of  knowledge,  and  by  really  delighting 
them  with  such  a  disj)lay  of  adroit  teasing  applied  to 
a  man  of  scenical  gravity,  this  whole  scene,  though 
quite  extrajudicial  and  travelling  out  of  the  record, 
was  highly  useful  in  conciliating  the  good-will  of 
Cicero's  audience.  The  same  style  of  liberal  excursus 
from  the  more  thorny  path  of  the  absolvite  business 
before  the  court,  has  been  often  and  memorably 
practised  by  great  English  barristers — as,  in  the  trial 
of  Sacheverel,  by  many  of  the  managers  for  the 
Commons ;  by  '  the  fluent  Murray,'  on  vai-ious  occa- 
sions ;  in  the  great  cause  of  impeachment  against  our 
English  Verres  (or,  at  least,  our  Yerres  as  to  the 
situation,  though  not  the  guilt),  Mr.  Hastings ;  in 
many  of  Mr.  Erskine's  addresses  to  juries,  where 
political  rights  were  at  stake  ;  in  Sir  James  Mackin- 
tosh's defence  of  Peltier  for  a  libel  upon  Napoleon, 
when  he  went  into  a  history  of  the  press  as  applied  to 
politics — (a  liberal  inquiry,  but  which,  except  in  the 
remotest  manner,  could  not  possibly  bear  upon  the 
mere  question  of  fact  before  the  jury) ;  and  in  many 
other  splendid  instances,  which  have  really  made  otir 
trials  and  the  annals  of  our  criminal  jurisprudence 
one  great  fund  of  information  and  authority  to  the 
historian.  In  the  senate,  I  need  not  say  how  much 
farther,  and  more  frequently,  this  habit  of  large 
generalisation,  and  of  liberal  excursion  from  perhaps 
a  lifeless  theme,  has  been  carried  by  great  masters ; 
in  particular,  by  Edmund  Burke,  who  cariied  it,  in 


78  DE   QUINCEY. 

fact,  to  such  excess,  and  to  a  point  wliich  threatened 
so  much  to  disturb  the  movement  of  public  business, 
that,  from  that  cause  more  perhaps  than  from  rude 
insensibility  to  the  value  of  his  speculations,  he  put 
liis  audience  sometimes  in  motion  for  dinner,  and 
acquired  (as  is  well-known)  the  surname  of  the 
Dinner  Bell.* 

Now,  in  the  Athenian  audience,  all  this  was  im- 
possible :  neither  in  political  nor  in  forensic  harangues 
was  there  any  liceuse  by  rale,  or  any  indulgence  by 
usage,  or  any  special  privilege  by  personal  favour,  to 
the  least  effort  at  improving  an  individual  case  of  law 
or  politics  into  general  views  of  jurisprudence,  of 
statesmanship,  of  diplomacy ;  no  collateral  discussions 
were  tolei'ated — no  illustrative  details — no  historical 
parallelisms — still  less  any  philosophical  moralisations. 
The  slightest  show  of  any  tendency  in  these  directions 
was  summarily  nipped  in  the  bud :  the  Athenian 
gentlemen  began  to  dopv€t'ti'  in  good  earnest  if  a  man 
showed  symptoms  of  entering  upon  any  discussion 
whatever  that  was  not  intensely  needful  and  pertinent 
in  the  first  place — or  which,  in  the  second  place,  was 
not  of  a  nature  to  be  wound  up  in  two  sentences  when 
a  summons  should  arise  either  to  dinner,  or  to  the 
theatre,  or  to  the  succession  of  some  variety  anticipated 
from  another  orator. 

Hence,  therefore,  finally  arises  one  great  peculiarity 
of  Greek  eloquence ;  and  a  most  unfortunate  one  for 

*  Yet  this  story  has  been  exaggerated  ;  and,  I  believe,  in 
strict  truth,  the  whole  case  arose  out  of  some  fretful  expressions 
of  ill-temper  on  the  part  of  Burke,  and  that  the  name  was  a 
retort  from  a  man  of  wit,  who  had  been  personally  stung  by  a 
sarcasm  of  the  offended  orator. 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     79 

its  chance  of  evei"  influencing  a  remote  posterity,  or, 
in  any  substantial  sense,  of  its  ever  surviving  in  the 
real  unaffected  admiration  of  us  moderns — that  it 
embodies  no  alien,  no  collateral  information  as  to 
manners,  usages,  modes  of  feeling — no  extrinsic  orna- 
ment, no  side  glimpses  into  Grecian  life,  no  casual 
historical  details.  The  cause,  and  nothing  but  the 
cause — the  political  question,  and  nothing  but  the 
question — pealed  for  ever  in  the  ears  of  the  terrified 
orator,  always  on  sufferance,  always  on  his  good 
behaviour,  always  afi-aid,  for  the  sake  of  his  party  or 
of  his  client,  lest  his  auditors  should  become  angry,  or 
become  impatient,  or  become  weary.  And  from  that 
intense  fear,  trammeling  the  freedom  of  his  steps  at 
every  turn,  and  overruling  every  motion  to  the  right 
or  to  the  left,  in  pure  servile  anxiety  for  the  mood 
and  disposition  of  his  tyrannical  master,  arose  the 
very  opposite  result  for  us  of  this  day — that  we,  by 
the  very  means  adopted  to  prevent  weariness  in  the 
immediate  auditors,  find  nothing  surviving  in  Grecian 
orations  but  what  does  weary  us  insupportably  through 
its  want  of  all  general  interest ;  and,  even  amongst 
private  or  instant  details  of  politics  or  law,  presenting 
us  with  none  that  throw  light  upon,  the  spirit  of 
manners,  or  the  Grecian  peculiarities  of  feeling. 
Probably  an  Athenian  mob  would  not  have  cared 
much  at  the  prospect  of  such  a  result  to  posterity ; 
and,  at  any  rate,  would  not  have  sacrificed  one  atom 
of  their  ease  or  pleasure  to  obviate  such  a  result  : 
but,  to  an  Athenian  orator,  this  result  would  have 
been  a  sad  one  to  contemplate.  The  final  consequence 
is,  that  whilst  all  men  find,  or  may  find,  infinite 
amusement,  and  instruction  of  the  most  liberal  kind, 


80  DE    QUINOEY. 

in  that  most  accomplished  of  statesmen  and  orators, 
the  Roman  Cicero — nay,  would  doubtless,  from  the 
causes  assigned,  have  fovind,  in  their  proportion,  the 
same  attractions  in  the  speeches  of  the  elder  Antony, 
of  Hortensius,  of  Crassus,  and  other  contemporaries 
or  immediate  predecessors  of  Cicei^o — -no  person  ever 
reads  Demosthenes,  still  less  any  other  Athenian 
orator,  with  the  slightest  interest  beyond  that  which 
inevitably  attaches  to  the  words  of  one  who  wrote  his 
own  divine  language  with  probably  very  superior 
skill. 

But,  from  all  this,  results  a  further  inference — viz, 
the  dire  affectation  of  those  who  pretend  an  enthusiasm 
in  the  oratory  of  Desmosthenes ;  and  also  a  plenary 
consolation  to  all  who  are  obliged,  from  ignorance 
of  Greek,  to  dispense  with  that  novelty.  If  it  be  a 
luxury  at  all,  it  is  and  can  be  one  for  those  only 
who  cultivate  verbal  researches  and  the  pleasures  of 
■philology. 

Even  in  the  oratory  of  our  own  times,  which  often- 
times discusses  questions  to  the  whole  growth  and 
motion  of  which  we  have  been  ourselves  parties 
present,  or  even  accessary — questions  which  we  have 
followed  in  their  first  emersion  and  separation  from 
the  clouds  of  general  politics ;  tlieir  advance,  slow  or 
rapid,  towards  a  domineering  interest  in  the  public 
passions ;  their  meridian  altitude ;  and  perhaps  their 
precipitous  descent  downwards,  whether  from  the 
consummation  of  their  objects  (as  in  the  questions  of 
the  Slave  Trade,  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  of  East 
India  Monopoly),  or  from  a  partial  victory  and  com- 
promise with  the  abuse  (as  in  the  purification  of  that 
Augean  stable,  prisons,  and,  still  more,  private  houses 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF   THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.      81 

for  the  insane),  or  from  the  accomplishment  of  one 
stage  or  so  in  a  progress  which,  by  its  nature,  is 
infinite  (as  in  the  various  steps  taken  towards  the 
improvement,  and  towards  the  extension  of  edu- 
cation) :  even  in  cases  like  these,  when  the  primary 
and  ostensible  object  of  the  speaker  already,  on  its 
own  account,  possesses  a  commanding  attraction,  yet 
will  it  often  happen  that  the  secondary  questions, 
growing  out  of  the  leading  one,  the  great  elementary 
themes  suggested  to  the  speaker  by  the  concrete  case 
before  him — as,  for  instance,  the  general  question 
of  Test  Laws,  or  the  still  higher  and  transcendent 
question  of  Religious  Toleration,  and  the  relations 
between  the  State  and  religious  opinions,  or  the 
general  history  of  Slavery  and  the  commerce  in  the 
human  species,  the  general  principles  of  economy  as 
applied  to  monopolies,  the  past  usages  of  mankind  in 
their  treatment  of  prisoners  or  of  lunatics — these 
comprehensive  and  transcendent  themes  are  con- 
tinually allowed  to  absorb  and  throw  into  the  shade, 
for  a  time,  the  minor  but  more  lu'gent  question  of 
the  moment  through  which  they  have  gained  their 
interest.  The  capital  and  primary  interest  gives  way 
for  a  time  to  the  derivative  interest ;  and  it  does  so 
by  a  silent  understanding  between  the  orator  and  his 
audience.  The  orator  is  well  assured  that  he  will  not 
be  taxed  with  wandering ;  the  audience  are  satisfied 
that,  eventually,  they  will  not  have  lost  their  time  : 
and  the  final  result  is,  to  elevate  and  liberalise  the 
province  of  oratory,  by  exalting  mere  business  (grow- 
ing originally,  perhaps,  out  of  contingencies  of  finance, 
or  trade,  or  local  police)  into  a  field  for  the  higher 
understanding ;  and  giving  to  the  mere  necessities  of 

VOL.  I.  F 


82  DE   QUINCEY. 

our  position  as  a  nation  the  dignity  of  great  problems 
for  civilising  wisdom  or  philosophic  philanthropy. 
Look  back  to  the  superb  orations  of  Edmund  Burke 
on  questions  limited  enough  in  themselves,  sometimas 
merely  personal ;  for  instance,  that  on  American 
Taxation,  on  the  Reforms  in  our  Household  or  Official 
Expenditure,  or  at  that  from  the  Bristol  hustings  (by 
its  2)'>'i77id  facie  subject,  therefore,  a  mere  electioneer- 
iiig  harangue  to  a  mob).  With  what  marvellous 
skill  does  he  enrich  what  is  meagre,  elevate  what  is 
humble,  intellectualise  what  is  purely  technical,  de- 
localise  what  is  local,  generalise  what  is  personal  ! 
And  with  what  result?  Doubtless  to  the  absolute 
contemporaries  of  those  speeches,  steeped  to  the  very 
lips  in  the  passions  besetting  their  topics,  even  to 
those  whose  attention  was  sufficiently  secured  by  the 
domineering  interest,  friendly  or  hostile,  to  the  views 
of  the  speaker — even  to  these  I  say,  that,  in  so  far  as 
they  were  at  all  capable  of  an  intellectual  pleasure, 
those  parts  would  be  most  attractive  which  were  least 
occupied  with  the  present  business  and  the  momentary 
details.  This  order  of  precedency  in  the  interests  of 
the  speech  held  even  for  them ;  but  to  us,  removing 
at  every  annual  step  we  take  in  the  century,  to  a 
greater  distance  from  the  mere  business  and  partisan 
interests  of  the  several  cases,  this  secondary  attraction 
is  not  merely  the  greater  of  the  two — to  us  it  has 
become  pretty  nearly  the  sole  one,  pretty  nearly  the 
exclusive  attraction. 

As  to  reUgious  oratory,  that  stands  upon  a  different 
footing- — the  questions  afloat  in  that  province  of 
human  speculation  being  eternal,  or  at  least  essenti- 
ally  the    same    under   new  forms,  receives  a  strong 


A   BRIEF   APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     83 

illustration  from  the  annals  of  the  English  senate,  to 
which  also  it  gives  a  strong  and  useful  illustration. 
Up  to  the  era  of  James  1.,  the  eloquence  of  either 
House  could  not,  for  political  reasons,  be  very  striking, 
on  the  very  principle  which  we  have  been  enforcing. 
Pai-liament  met  only  for  dispatch  of  business ;  and 
that   business    was  purely   fiscal,   or  (as  at  times  it 
happened)  judicial.     The  constitutional   functions  of 
Parliament  were  nari'ow ;    and    they  were  narrowed 
still  more  severely  by  the  jealousy  of  the  executive 
government.     "With    the    expansion,    or   rather    first 
growth  and  development  of  a  gentry,  or  third  estate, 
expsLudei,  pari  2)assic,  the  political  field  of  their  juris- 
diction and  their  deliberative  functions.     This  widen- 
ing field,  as  a  birth  out  of  new  existences,  unknown 
to    former  laws  or  usages,  was,  of  course,  not   con- 
templated by  those  laws  or  usages.     Constitutional 
law  could  not  provide  for  the  exercise  of  rights  by  a 
body  of  citizens,  when,  as  yet,  that  body  had  itself  no 
existence.     A   gentry,    as   the  depository  of   a  vast 
overbalance  of  property,  real  as  well  as  personal,  had 
not  matured  itself  till  the  latter  years  of  James  I. 
Consequently  the  new  functions,  which  the  instinct 
of  their  new  situation  prompted  them  to  assume,  were 
looked  upon  by  the  Crown,  most  sincerely,  as  unlawful 
usurpations.     This  led,  as  we  know,  to  a  most  fervent 
and  impassioned  struggle,  the  most  so  of  any  struggle 
which   has  ever  armed    the   hands  of  men   with  the 
swori.     For  the  passions  take  a  far  profounder  sweep 
when  they  are  supported  by  deep  thought  and  high 
principles. 

This  element  of  fervid  strife  was  ah'eady,  for  itself, 
an  atmosphere  most  favourable  to  political  eloquence. 


84  DE   QUINCEY. 

Accordingly,  the  speeches  of  that  day,  though  generally 
too  short  to  attain  that  large  compass  and  sweep  of 
movement  without  which  it  is  difficult  to  kindle  or  to 
sustain  any  conscious  enthusiasm  in  an  audience,  were 
of  a  high  quality  as  to  thought  and  energy  of  expres- 
sion, as  high  as  their  circumstantial  disadvantages 
allowed.  Loi'd  Strafford's  great  effort  is  deservedly 
admired  to  this  day,  and  the  latter  part  of  it  has  been 
often  pronounced  a  clief-cV leuvre.  A  few  years  before 
that  era,  all  the  orators  of  note  were,  and  must  have 
been,  judicial  orators;  and,  amongst  these,  Lord 
Bacon,  to  whom  every  reader's  thoughts  will  point  as 
the  most  memorable,  attained  the  chief  object  of  all 
oratory,  if  what  Ben  Jonson  reports  of  him  be  true, 
that  he  had  his  audience  passive  to  the  motions  of  his 
will.  But  Jonson  was,  perhaps,  too  scholastic  a  judge 
to  be  a  fair  representative  judge  ;  and,  whatever  he 
might  choose  to  say  or  to  think,  Lord  Bacon  was 
certainly  too  weighty — too  massy  with  the  bullion  of 
original  thought — ever  to  have  realized  the  idea  of  a 
great  popular  orator — one  who 

'Wielded  at  Avill  a  fierce  democracy,' 

and  ploughed  up  the  great  deeps  of  sentiment,  or 
party  strife,  or  national  animosities,  like  a  Levanter 
or  a  monsoon.  In  the  schools  of  Plato,  in  the  'paJcastra 
Stoicorum,  such  an  orator  might  be  potent ;  not  in 
fcece  Ro'inuli.  If  he  had  laboured  with  no  other  defect, 
had  he  the  gift  of  tautology  ?  Could  he  say  the  same 
thing  three  times  over  in  direct  sequence  1  For,  with- 
out this  talent  of  iteration — of  repeating  the  same 
thought  in  diversified  forms — a  man  may  utter  good 
heads  of  an  oration,  but  not  an  oration.     Just  as  the 


A    BRIEF    APPRxVISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     85 

same  illustrious  man's  essays  are  good  hints — useful 
topics — for  essays  ;  but  no  approximation  to  what  we, 
in  modern  days,  understand  by  essays :  they  are,  as 
an  eminent  author  once  happily  expressed  it  to  myself, 
'  seeds,  not  plants  or  shrubs ;  acorns,  that  is,  oaks  in 
eiahryo,  hut  not  oaks.' 

Reverting,  however,  to  the  oratory  of  the  Senate, 
from  the  ei"a  of  its  proper  birth,  which  we  may  date 
from  the  opening  of  that  our  memorable  Long  Parlia- 
ment, brought  together  in  November  of  1642,*  our 
Parliamentary  eloquence  has  now,  within  four  years, 
travelled  through  a  period  of  two  centuries.  A  most 
admirable  subject  for  an  essay,  or  a  Magazine  article, 
as  it  strikes  me,  would  be  a  bird's-eye  view — or 
rather  a  bird's-wing  flight — -puisuing  rapidly  the 
revolutions  of  that  memorable  oracle  (for  such  it 
really  was  to  the  rest  of  civilised  Europe),  which, 
through  so  long  a  course  of  years,  like  the  Delphic 
oracle  to  the  nations  of  old,  delivered  counsels  of  civil 
prudence  and  of  national  grandeur,  that  kept  alive 
for  Christendom  the  recollections  of  freedom,  and 
refreshed  to  the  enslaved  Continent  the  old  ideas  of 
Roman  patriotism,  which,  but  for  our  Parliament, 
would  have  uttered  themselves  by  no  voices  on  earth! 

*  There  was  another  Parliament  of  this  same  year  1642,  which 
met  in  the  spring  (April,  I  think),  but  was  summarily  dissolved. 
A  small  quarto  volume,  of  not  unfrequent  occurrence,  I  believe, 
contains  some  good  specimens  of  the  eloquence  then  prevalent — 
it  was  rich  in  thouglit,  never  wordy — in  fact,  too  parsimonious 
in  words  and  illustrations  ;  and  it  breathed  a  high  tone  of 
religious  principle  as  well  as  of  pure-minded  patriotism  ;  but, 
for  the  reason  stated  above — its  narrow  circuit  and  very  limited 
duration — the  general  character  of  the  Parliamentary  eloquence 
was  ineffective. 


86  DE    QUINCEY. 

That  this  account  of  the  position  occupied  by  our 
British  Parliament,  in  relation  to  the  rest  of  Europe, 
at  least  after  the  publication  of  the  Debates  had 
been  commenced  by  Cave,  with  the  aid  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
is,  in  no  respect,  romantic  or  overcharged,  may  be 
learned  from  the  German  novels  of  the  last  century, 
in  which  we  find  the  British  debates  as  uniformly  the 
morning  accompaniment  of  breakfast,  at  the  houses 
of  the  rural  gentry,  &c.,  as  in  any  English  or  Scottish 
county.  Such  a  sketch  would,  of  course,  collect  the 
characteristics  of  each  age,  show  in  what  connection 
these  characteristics  stood  with  the  political  aspects 
of  the  time,  or  with  the  modes  of  managing  public 
business  (a  fatal  rock  to  our  public  eloquence  in 
England  !),  and  illustrate  the  whole  by  interesting 
specimens  from  the  leading  orators  in  each  generation  : 
from  Hampden  to  Pulteney,  amongst  oppositionists 
or  patriots ;  from  Pulteney  to  O'Connell ;  or,  again, 
amongst  Ministers,  fi-om  Hyde  to  Somers,  from  Lord 
Sunderland  to  Lords  Oxford  and  Bolingbroke ;  and 
from  the  plain,  downright  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  to  the 
plain,  downright  Sir  Robert  Peel. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  this  review,  the  same 
'  moral,'  if  one  might  so  call  it,  would  be  apparent — • 
viz.  that  in  proportion  as  the  oratory  was  high  and 
intellectual,  did  it  travel  out  into  the  collateral  ques- 
tions of  less  instant  necessity,  but  more  durable 
interest ;  and  that,  in  proportion  as  the  Grecian 
necessity  was  or  was  not  enforced  by  the  temper  of 
the  House,  or  by  the  pressure  of  public  business — the 
necessity  which  cripples  the  orator,  by  confining  him 
within  the  severe  limits  of  the  case  before  him — in 
that  proportion  had  or  had  not  the  oratory  of  past 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     87 

generations  a  surviving  interest  for  modern  posterity. 
Nothing,  in  fact,  so  utterly  effete — not  even  old  law, 
or  old  pharmacy,  or  old  erroneous  chemistry — nothing 
so  insufferably  dull  as  political  orations,  unless  when 
powerfully  animated  by  that  spirit  of  generalisation 
which  only  gives  the  breath  of  life  and  the  salt  which 
preserves  from  decay,  through  every  age  alike.  The 
very  strongest  proof,  as  well  as  exemplification  of  all 
which  has  been  said  on  Grecian  oratory,  may  thus  be 
found  in  the  records  of  the  British  senate. 

And  this,  by  the  way,  brings  us  round  to  an  aspect 
of  Grecian  oratory  which  has  been  rendered  memor- 
able, and  forced  upon  our  notice,  in  the  shape  of  a 
problem,  by  the  most  popular  of  our  native  historians 
—the  aspect,  I  mean,  of  Greek  oratory  in  comparison 
with  English.  Hume  has  an  essay  upon  the  subject ; 
and  the  true  answer  to  that  essay  will  open  a  wide 
field  of  truth  to  us.  In  this  little  paper,  Hume 
assumes  the  superiority  of  Grecian  eloquence,  as  a 
thing  admitted  on  all  hands,  and  requiring  no  proof. 
Not  the  proof  of  this  point  did  he  propose  to  himself 
as  his  object ;  not  even  the  illustration  of  it.  No. 
All  that,  Hume  held  to  be  superfluous.  His  object 
was,  to  investigate  the  causes  of  this  Grecian  superi- 
ority ;  or,  if  investigate  is  too  pompous  a  word  for  so 
slight  a  discussion,  more  properly,  he  inquired  for  the 
cause  as  something  that  must  naturally  lie  upon  the 
surface. 

What  is  the  answer  ?  First  of  all,  before  looking 
for  causes,  a  man  should  be  sui^e  of  his  facts.  Now, 
as  to  the  main  fact  at  issue,  I  utterly  deny  the 
sviperiority  of  Grecian  eloquence.  And,  first  of  all,  T 
change    the  whole   field  of   inquiry    by  shifting   the 


88  DE    QUINCEY. 

comparison.  The  Greek  oratory  is  all  political  or 
judicial:  we  have  those  also;  but  the  best  of  our 
eloquence,  by  immeasurable  degrees,  the  noblest  and 
richest,  is  our  religious  eloquence.  Here,  of  course, 
all  comparison  ceases ;  for  classical  Grecian  religious 
eloquence,  in  Grecian  attire,  there  is  none  until  three 
centuries  after  the  Christian  era,  when  we  have  three 
great  orators,  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Basil — of  which 
two  I  have  a  very  fixed  opinion,  having  read  large 
j)ortions  of  botli — and  a  third  of  whom  I  know  no- 
thing. To  our  Jeremy  Taylor,  to  our  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  there  is  no  approach  made  in  the  Greek 
eloquence.  The  inaugural  chapter  of  the  Holy 
Dying,  to  say  nothing  of  many  another  golden 
passage ;  or  the  famous  passage  in  the  Urn  Buriall, 
beginning — '  Now,  since  these  bones  have  rested  under 
the  drums  and  tramplings  of  three  conquests  ' — have 
no  paralled  in  literature.  The  winding  up  of  the 
former  is  more,  in  its  effect,  like  a  great  tempestuous 
chorus  from  the  Judas  Maccabeus,  or  from  Spohr's  St. 
Paul,  than  like  human  eloquence. 

But,  grant  that  this  transfer  of  the  comparison  is 
unfair — still,  it  is  no  less  unfair  to  confine  the  com- 
parison on  our  part  to  the  weakest  part  of  our 
oratory  ;  but  no  matter — let  issue  be  joined  even  here. 
Then  we  may  say,  at  once,  that,  for  the  intellectual 
qualities  of  eloquence,  in  fineness  of  understanding,  in 
depth  and  in  large  compass  of  thought,  Burke  far 
surpasses  any  orator,  ancient  or  modern.  But,  if  the 
comparison  were  pushed  more  widely,  very  certain  I 
am,  that,  apart  from  classical  prejudice,  no  qualities 
of  just  thinking,  or  fine  expression,  or  even  of  arti- 
ficial ornament,  could  have  been  assigned  by  Hume, 


A    BRIEF    APPRAISAL    OF    THE    GREEK    LITERATURE.     89 

in  Avhich  the  great  body  of  our  deliberative  and 
forensic  orators  fall  short  of  Grecian  models  ;  though 
I  will  admit,  that,  by  comparison  with  the  Roman 
model  of  Cicero,  there  is  seldom  the  same  artful 
prefiguration  of  the  oration  throughout  its  future 
course,  or  the  same  sustained  rhythmus  and  oratorial 
tone.  The  qualities  of  art  are  nowhere  so  prominently 
expressed,  nowhere  aid  the  effect  so  much,  as  in  the 
great  Roman  master. 

But,  as  to  Greece,  let  us  now,  in  one  word,  unveil 
the  sole  advantage  which  the  eloquence  of  the  Athenian 
assembly/  lias  over  that  of  the  English  senate.  It  is 
this — the  public  business  of  Athens  ivas  as  yet  simple 
and  unencumbered  by  details ;  the  dignity  of  the 
occasion  was  scenically  sustained.  But,  in  England, 
the  vast  intricacy  and  complex  interweaving  of  pro- 
perty, of  commerce,  of  commercial  interests,  of  details 
infinite  in  number,  and  infinite  in  littleness,  break 
down  and  fritter  away  into  fractions  and  petty 
minutiae,  the  whole  huge  labyiinth  of  our  public 
affairs.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  explain  my  mean- 
ing. In  Athens,  the  question  before  the  public 
assembly  was,  peace  or  war — before  our  House  of 
Commons,  perhaps  the  Exchequer  Bills'  Bill ;  at 
Athens,  a  league  or  no  league — in  England,  the  Tithe 
of  Agistment  Commutation- Bills'  Renewal  Bill ;  in 
Athens — shall  we  forgive  a  ruined  enemy  ?  in  England 
— shall  we  cancel  the  tax  on  farthing  rushlights  ]  In 
short,  with  us,  the  infinity  of  details  overlays  the 
simplicity  and  grandeur  of  our  public  deliberations. 

Such  was  the  advantage — a  mighty  advantage — for 
Greece.  Now,  finally,  for  the  use  made  of  this  ad- 
vantage.    To  that  point  I  have  already  spoken.     By 


90  DE    QUINCEY. 

the  clamorous  and  undeliberative  qualities  of  the 
Athenian  political  audience,  by  its  fitful  impatience, 
and  vehement  arrogance,  and  fervid  partisanship,  all 
wide  and  general  discussion  was  barred  in  limine. 
And  thus  occurred  this  singular  inversion  of  positions 
— the  greatest  of  Greek  orators  was  obliged  to  treat 
these  Catholic  questions  as  mere  Athenian  questions 
of  business.  On  the  other  hand,  the  least  eloquent 
of  British  senators,  whether  from  the  immense  ad- 
vance in  knowledge,  or  from  the  custom  and  usage  of 
ParHament,  seldom  fails,  more  or  less,  to  elevate  his 
intense  details  of  pure  technical  business  into  some- 
thing dignified,  either  by  the  necessities  of  pursuing 
the  historical  relations  of  the  matter  in  discussion,  or 
of  arguing  its  merits  as  a  case  of  general  finance,  or 
as  connected  with  general  political  economy,  or, 
perhaps,  in  its  bearings  on  peace  or  war.  The  Grecian 
was  forced,  by  the  composition  of  his  headstrong 
auditory,  to  degrade  and  personalise  his  grand  themes  ; 
the  Englishman  is  forced,  by  the  ditt'erence  of  his 
audience,  by  old  prescription,  and  by  the  opposition 
of  a  well-informed,  hostile  party,  into  elevating  his 
merely  technical  and  petty  themes  into  great  national 
questions,  involving  honour  and  benefit  to  tens  of 
millions. 


THE   GERMAN   LANGUAGE,  AND 
PHILOSOPHY   OF   KANT. 

Using  a  New  Testament,  of  which  (in  the  narrative 
parts  at  least)  any  one  word  being  given  will  suggest 
most  of  what  is  immediately  consecutive,  you  evade 
the  most  irksome  of  the  penalties  annexed  to  the  first 
breaking  ground  in  a  new  language  :  you  evade  the 
necessity  of  hunting  up  and  down  a  dictionary.  Your 
own  memory,  and  the  inevitable  suggestions  of  the 
context,  furnish  a  dictionary  jn'O  Jiac  vice.  And  after- 
wards, upon  advancing  to  other  books,  where  you  are 
obliged  to  forego  such  aids,  and  to  swim  without 
corks,  you  find  yourself  already  in  possession  of  the 
particles  for  expressing  addition,  succession,  excep- 
tion, inference — in  short,  of  all  the  forms  by  which 
transition  or  connection  is  effected  {if,  hut,  and,  there- 
fore, however,  not  wit! islanding),  together  with  all  those 
adverbs  for  modifying  or  restraining  the  extent  of  a 
subject  or  a  predicate,  which  in  all  languages  alike 
compose  the  essential  frame  work  or  extra-linear 
machinery  of  hvmian  thought.  The  filling-up — the 
matter  (in  a  scholastic  sense) — may  differ  infinitely ; 
but  the  form,  the  periphery,  the  determining  moulds 


92  DE    QUINCEY. 

into  which  this  matter  is  fused— all  this  is  the  same 
for  ever  :  and  so  wonderfully  limited  in  its  extent  is 
this  frame-work,  so  narrow  and  rapidly  revolving  is 
the  clock-work  of  connections  among  human  thoughts, 
that  a  dozen  pages  of  almost  any  book  suffice  to 
exhaust  all  the  iirea  irrtpoevra*  which  express  them. 
To  have  mastered  these  tVco  -n-Tip^iVTa  is  in  effect  to 
have  mastered  seven-tenths,  at  the  least,  of  any 
language  ;  and  the  benefit  of  using  a  New  Testament, 
or  the  familiar  parts  of  an  Old  Testament,  in  this  pre- 
liminary drill,  is,  that  your  own  memory  is  thus  made 
to  operate  as  a  perpetual  dictionary  or  nomenclator. 
I  have  heard  Mr.  Southey  say  that,  by  carrying  in 
his  pocket  a  Dutch,  Swedish,  or  other  Testament,  on 
occasion  of  a  long  journey  performed  in  'muggy' 
weather,  and  in  the  inside  of  some  venerable  '  old 
heavy  ' — such  as  used  to  bestow  their  tediousness  upon 
our  respectable  fathers  some  thirty  or  forty  years  ago 

*  "Effta  Trrfpofira,  literally  wmgrediiio/^fo.  To  explain  the  use 
and  origin  of  this  phrase  to  non-classical  readers,  it  must  be 
understood  that,  originally,  it  was  used  by  Homer  to  express  the 
few,  rapid,  and  significant  words  which  conveyed  some  hasty 
order,  counsel,  or  notice,  suited  to  any  sudden  occasion  or 
emergency  :  e.  g.  '  To  him  flying  from  the  field  the  hero  ad- 
dressed these  winged  words — "  Stop,  coward,  or  I  will  transfix 
thee  with  my  spear." '  But  by  Home  Tooke,  the  phrase  was 
adopted  on  the  title-page  of  his  Diversions  of  Parley,  as  a  plea- 
sant symbolic  expression  for  all  the  non-significant  particles,  the 
articuli  or  joints  of  language,  which  in  his  well-known  theory 
are  resolved  into  abbreviations  or  compendious  forms  (and 
therefore  rapid,  flying,  loingcd  forms),  substituted  for  significant' 
forms  of  greater  length.  Thus,  if  is  a  non-significant  particle, 
but  it  is  an  abbreviated  form  of  an  imperative  in  the  second 
person — substituted  for  gif,  or  give,  or  grant  the  case — put  the 
case  that.  All  other  particles  are  shown  by  Home  Tooke  to  be 
erpially  shorthand  (or  winged)  substitutions. 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  93 

— be  had  more  than  once  tiu-ned  to  so  valuable  an 
accovmt  the   doziness  or  the    dulness   of    his  fellow- 
travellers,  that  whereas  he  had  '  booked '  himself  at 
the    coach-office    utterly    dpaXfaPnTog,    unacquainted 
with  the  first  rudiments  of.  the  given  language,  he 
had  made  his  parting    bows  to    his   coach   brethren 
(secretly  returning  thanks  to  them  for  their  stupidity), 
in  a  condition  for  grappling  with  any  common  book 
in  that  dialect.      One  of  the  polyglot   Old   or  New 
Testaments  published  by  Bagster,  would  be  a  perfect 
Encycloptedia,  or  Panorganon,  for  such  a  scheme  of 
coach  discipline,  upon  dull  roads  and  in  dull  company. 
As   respects  the    German    language  in   particular,   I 
shall  give  one  caution  from  my  own  experience,  to  the 
self-instructor  :   it  is  a  caution  which  applies  to  the 
German  language  exclusively,  or  to   that  more  than 
to  any  other,  because  the  embarrassment  Avhich  it  is 
meant  to  meet,  grows  out  of  a  defect  of  taste  charac- 
teristic of  the  German  mind.     It  is  this  :  elsewhere, 
you  would  naturally,  as  a  beginner,  resort  to  p-ose 
authors,  since  the  license  and  audacity  of  poetic  think- 
ing, and  the  large  freedom  of  a  poetic  treatment,  can- 
not fail  to  superadd  difficulties  of  individual  creation  to 
the  general  difficulties  of  a  strange  dialect.     But  this 
rule,  good  for  every  other  case,  is  not  good  for  the 
literature  of   Germany.     Difficulties  there  certainly 
are,  and  perhaps  in  more  than  the  usual  proportion, 
from  the  German  peculiarities  of  poetic  treatment ; 
but  even  these  are  overbalanced  in  the  result,  by  the 
single  advantage  of  being  limited  in  the  extent  by  the 
metre,  or  (as  it  may  happen)  by  the  particular  stanza. 
To  German  poetry  there  is  a  known,  fixed,  calculable 
limit.     Infinity,  absolute  infinity,  is  impracticable  in 


94  DE    QUINCEY. 

any  German  metre.  Not  so  with  German  prose. 
Style,  in  any  sense,  is  an  inconceivable  idea  to  a 
German  intellect.  Take  the  word  in  the  limited  sense 
of  what  the  Greeks  called  Suj/^eo-ie  oi/ojuarwc — i.  e.  the 
construction  of  sentences— I  affirm  that  a  German 
(unless  it  were  here  and  there  a  Lessing)  cannot  admit 
such  an  idea.  Books  there  are  in  German,  and,  in 
other  respects,  very  good  books  too,  which  consist  of 
one  or  two  enormous  sentences.  A  German  sentence 
describes  an  arch  between  the  rising  and  the  setting 
sun.  Take  Kant  for  illustration :  he  has  actually 
been  complimented  by  the  cloud-spinner,  Frederic 
Schlegel,  who  is  now  in  Hades,  as  a  most  original 
artist  in  the  matter  of  style.  '  Original '  Heaven 
knows  he  was  !  His  idea  of  a  sentence  was  as  follows: 
— We  have  all  seen,  or  read  of,  an  old  family  coach, 
and  the  process  of  packing  it  for  a  journey  to  Lordon 
some  seventy  or  eighty  years  ago.  Night  and  day, 
for  a  week  at  least,  sate  the  housekeeper,  the  lady's 
maid,  the  butler,  the  gentleman's  gentleman,  &c., 
packing  the  huge  ark  in  all  its  recesses,  its  '  impei-ials,' 
its  '  wills,'  its  '  Salisbury  boots,'  its  '  sword-cases,'  its 
fi"ont  pockets,  side  pockets,  rear  pockets,  its  '  hammer- 
cloth  cellars  '  (which  a  lady  explains  to  me  as  a  corrup- 
tion from  hamper-cloth,  as  originally  a  cloth  for  hiding 
a  hamper,  stored  with  viaticum),  until  all  the  uses  and 
needs  of  man,  and  of  human  life,  savage  or  civilised, 
were  met  with  separate  provision  by  the  infinite  chaos. 
Pretty  nearly  upon  the  model  of  such  an  old  family 
coach  packing,  did  Kant  institute  and  pursue  the 
packing  and  stuffing  of  one  of  his  regular  sentences. 
Everything  that  could  ever  be  needed  in  the  way 
of    explanation,  illustration,  restraint,  inference,   by- 


THE   GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  95 

clause,  or  indirect  comment,  was  to  be  crammed, 
according  to  this  German  philosopher's  taste,  into  the 
front  pockets,  side  pockets,  or  rear  pockets,  of  the  one 
original  sentence.  Hence  it  is  that  a  sentence  will 
last  in  reading  whilst  a  man 

'  Might  reap  an  acre  of  liis  neighbour's  corn.' 

Nor  is  this  any  peculiarity  of  Kant's.  It  is  common 
to  the  whole  family  of  prose  writers  of  Germany, 
unless  when  they  happen  to  have  studied  French 
models,  who  cultivate  the  opposite  extreme.  As  a 
caution,  therefore,  practically  applied  to  this  particular 
anomaly  in  German  prose-writing,  I  advise  all  begin- 
ners to  choose  between  two  classes  of  composition — 
ballad  poetry,  or  comedy— as  their  earliest  school  of 
exercise  ;  ballad  poetry,  because  the  form  of  the  stanza 
(usually  a  quatrain)  prescribes  a  very  narrow  range 
to  the  sentences ;  comedy,  because  the  form  of  dialogue, 
and  the  imitation  of  daily  life  in  its  ordinary  tone 
of  conversation,  and  the  spirit  of  comedy  naturally 
suggesting  a  brisk  interchange  of  speech,  all  tend  to 
short  sentences.  These  rules  I  soon  drew  from  my 
own  experience  and  observation.  And  the  one  sole 
purpose  towards  which  I  either  sought  or  wished  for 
aid,  respected  the  pronunciation ;  not  so  much  for 
attaining  a  just  one  (which  I  was  satisfied  could  not 
be  realised  out  of  Germany,  or,  at  least,  out  of  a  daily 
intercourse  with  Germans)  as  for  preventing  the 
formation,  unawares,  of  a  I'adically  false  one.  The 
guttural  and  palatine  sounds  of  the  ch,  and  some 
other  German  peculiarities,  cannot  be  acquired  with- 
out constant  practice.  But  the  false  Westphalian  or 
JewLsh  pronunciation  of  the  vowels,  diphthongs,  kc, 


96  DE    QUINCEY. 

may  easily  be  forestalled,  though  the  true  delicacy  of 
Meissen  should  happen  to  be  missed.  Thus  much 
guidance  I  purchased,  with  a  very  few  guineas,  from 
my  young  Dresden  tutor,  who  was  most  anxious  for 
permission  to  extend  his  assistance ;  but  this  I  would 
not  hear  of :  and,  in  the  spirit  of  fierce  (perhaps 
foolish)  independence,  which  governed  most  of  my 
actions  at  that  time  of  life,  I  did  all  the  rest  for 
myself. 

'  It  was  a  banner  broad  unfiul'd, 
The  picture  of  that  western  world.' 

These,  or  words  like  these,  in  which  Wordsworth 
conveys  the  sudden  apocalypse,  as  by  an  apparition, 
to  an  ardent  and  sympathising  spirit,  of  the  stupendous 
world  of  America,  rising,  at  once,  like  an  exhalation, 
.with  all  its  shadowy  forests,  its  endless  savannas,  and 
its  pomp  of  solitary  waters — well  and  truly  might  I 
have  applied  to  my  first  launching  upon  that  vast 
billowy  ocean  of  the  German  literature.  As  a  past 
literature,  as  a  literature  of  inheritance  and  tradition, 
the  German  was  nothing.  Ancestral  titles  it  had 
none  ;  or  none  comparable  to  those  of  England,  Spain, 
or  even  Italy ;  and  there,  also,  it  resembled  America, 
as  contrasted  with  the  ancient  world  of  Asia,  Europe, 
and  ISTorth  Africa.*  But,  if  its  inheritance  were 
nothing,  its  prospects,  and  the  scale  of  its  present 
development,  were  in  the  amplest  style  of  American 
grandeur.     Ten  thousand  new  books,  we  are  assured 

*  It  has  been  rather  too  much  forgotten,  that  Africa,  from 
the  nortlievn  margin  of  Bilidulgerid  and  the  Great  Desert,  south- 
wards—everywhere, in  short,  beyond  Egypt,  Cyrene,  and  the 
modern  Barbary  States — belongs,  as  much  as  America,  to  the 
New  'World — the  worhl  unknown  to  the  ancients. 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  97 

by  Menzel,  an  author  of  high  reputation — a  literal 
mt/riad — is  considerably  below  the  number  annually 
poured  from  all  quarters  of  Germany,  into  the  vast 
reservoir  of  Leipsic  ;  spawn  infinite,  no  doubt,  of 
crazy  dotage,  of  dreaming  imbecility,  of  wickedness, 
of  frenzy,  through  every  phasis  of  Babylonian  con- 
fusion ;  yet,  also,  teeming  and  heaving  with  life  and 
the  instincts  of  truth — of  truth  hunting  and  chasing 
in  the  broad  daylight,  or  of  truth  groping  in  the 
chambers  of  darkness ;  sometimes  seen  as  it  displays 
its  cornucopia  of  tropical  fruitage ;  sometimes  heard 
dimly,  and  in  promise,  working  its  way  through 
diamond  mines.  Not  the  tropics,  not  the  ocean,  not 
life  itself,  is  such  a  type  of  variety,  of  infinite  forms, 
or  of  creative  power,  as  the  German  literature,  in  its 
recent  motions  (say  for  the  last  twenty  years),  gather- 
ing, like  the  Danube,  a  fresh  volume  of  power  at  every 
stage  of  its  advance.  A  banner  it  was,  indeed,  to  me 
of  miraculous  promise,  and  suddenly  unfurled.  It 
seemed,  in  those  days,  an  El  Dorado  as  true  and  un- 
deceiving as  it  was  evidently  inexhaustible.  And  the 
central  object  in  this  interminable  wilderness  of  wliut 
then  seemed  imperishable  bloom  and  verdure — the 
very  tree  of  knowledge  in  the  midst  of  this  Eden — 
was  the  new  or  transcendental  philosophy  of  Immanuel 
Kant. 

I  have  described  the  gorgeousness  of  my  expecta- 
tions in  those  early  days  of  my  prelusive  acquaintance 
with  German  literature.  I  have  a  little  lingered  in 
painting  that  glad  aurora  of  my  first  pilgrimage  to 
the  fountains  of  the  E,lune  and  of  the  Danube,  in 
order  adequately  to  shadow  out  the  gloom  and  blight 
which  soon  afterwards  settled  upon  the  hopes  of  that 

VOL.  I.  G 


98  DE    QUINCEY. 

golden  dawn.  In  Kant,  I  had  been  taught  to  believe, 
were  the  keys  of  a  new  and  a  creative  philosophy. 
Either  '  ejus  ductu,^  or  '  ejus  auspiciis  ' — that  is,  either 
directly  under  his  guidance,  or  indirectly  under  any 
influence  remotely  derived  from  his  principles — I 
looked  confidingly  to  see  the  great  vistas  and  avenues 
of  truth  laid  open  to  the  philosophic  inquirer.  Alas  ! 
all  was  a  dream.  Six  weeks'  study  was  sufficient  to 
close  my  hopes  in  that  quarter  for  ever.  The  phil- 
osophy of  Kant — so  famous,  so  commanding  in 
Germany,  from  about  the  period  of  the  French 
Revolution — already,  in  1805,  I  had  found  to  be  a 
philosophy  of  destruction,  and  scarcely,  in  any  one 
chapter,  so  much  as  tending  to  a  philosophy  of  recon- 
struction. It  destroys  by  wholesale,  and  it  substitutes 
nothing.  Perhaps,  in  the  whole  history  of  man,  it  is 
an  unexampled  case,  that  such  a  scheme  of  speculation 
— which  offers  nothing  seducing  to  human  aspirations, 
nothing  splendid  to  the  human  imngination,  nothing 
even  positive  and  affirmative  to  the  human  under- 
standing— should  have  been  able  to  found  an  interest 
so  broad  and  deep  among  thii'ty-five  millions  of  culti- 
vated men.  The  English  reader  who  supposes  this 
interest  to  have  been  confined  to  academic  bowers,  or 
the  halls  of  philosophic  societies,  is  most  inadeqviately 
alive  to  the  case.  Sects,  heresies,  schisms,  by  hundreds, 
have  arisen  out  of  this  philosophy — many  thousands 
of  books  have  been  written  by  way  of  teaching  it, 
discussing  it,  extending  it,  opposing  it.  And  yet  it 
is  a  fact,  that  all  its  doctrines  are  negative — teaching, 
in  no  case,  what  we  are,  but  simply  what  we  are  7iot 
to  believe — and  that  all  its  truths  are  barren.  Such 
being  its  unpopular  character,  I  cannot  but  imagine 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  99 

that  the  German  people  have  received  it  with  so  much 
ardour,  from  profound  incomprehension  of  its  mean- 
ing, and  utter  blindness  to  its  drift — a  solution  which 
may   seem    extravagant,    but    is    not    so ;    for,    even 
amongst  those  who  have  expressly  commented  on  this 
philosophy,  not  one  of  the  many  hundreds  whom  I 
have  myself  read,  l)ut  has  retracted  from  every  attempt 
to  explain  its  dark  places.     In  these  dark  places  lies, 
indeed,  the  secret  of  its  attraction.    Were  light  poured 
into  them,  it  would  be  seen  that  they  are  cuh-de-sac, 
passages  that  lead  to  nothing  ;  but,  so  long  as  they 
continue  dark,  it  is  not  known  whither  they  lead,  how 
far,  in  what  direction,  and  whether,  in  fact,  they  may 
not    issue   into    paths    connected    directly    Avith    the 
positive  and  the  infinite.     Were  it  known  that  upon 
every  path    a   barrier    faces    you  insurmountable  to 
human  steps — like  the  barriers  which    fence  in  the 
Abyssinian  valley  of  Rasselas — the  popularity  of  this 
philosophy  would    expire  at    once ;    for    no    popular 
interest  can  long  be  sustained  by  speculations  which, 
in  every  aspect,  are  known  to  be  essentially  negative 
and  essentially  finite.     Man's  nature  has  something 
of  infinity  within  itself,  which  requires  a  correspond- 
ing infinity  in  its  objects.     We  are  told,  indeed,  by 
Mr.  Bulwer,  that  the  Kantian  system  has  ceased  to 
be  of  any  authority  in  Germany — that  it  is  defunct, 
in  fact — and  that  we  have  first  begun  to  import  it 
into  England,  after  its  root  had  withered,  or  begun 
to  wither,  in  its   native  soil.      But    Mr.   Bulwer  is 
mistaken.       The    philosophy   has   never   withered    in 
Germany.     It  cannot  even  be  said  that  its  fortunes 
have  retrograded  :  they  have  oscillated  :  accidents  of 
taste  and  ability  in  particular  professors,  or  caprices 

G  2 


100  DE    QUINCEY. 

of  fashion,  have  given  a  momentary  fluctuation  to 
this  or  that  new  form  of  Kantianism, — an  ascendency, 
for  a  period,  to  various,  and,  in  some  respects,  con- 
flicting, modifications  of  the  transcendental  system ; 
but  all  alike  have  derived  their  power  mediately  from 
Kant.  No  weapons,  even  if  employed  as  hostile 
weapons,  are  now  forged  in  any  aimoury  hut  that  of 
Kant ;  and,  to  repeat  a  Roman  figure  which  I  used 
above,  all  the  modern  polemic  tactics  of  what  is  called 
metaphysics,  are  trained  and  made  to  move  either 
ejus  ductu  or  ejus  auspiciis.  Not  one  of  the  new 
systems  affects  to  call  back  the  Leibnitzian  philosophy, 
the  Cartesian,  or  any  other  of  earlier  or  later  date,  as 
adequate  to  the  pui-poses  of  the  intellect  in  this  day, 
or  as  capable  of  yielding  even  a  sufficient  terminology. 
Let  this  last  fact  decide  the  question  of  Kant's 
vitality.  Qui  bene  distinguit  bene  docet.  This  is  an 
old  adage.  Now,  he  who  imposes  new  names  upon 
all  the  acts,  the  functions,  and  the  objects  of  the 
philosophic  understanding,  must  be  presumed  to  have 
distinguished  most  sharply,  and  to  have  ascertained 
with  most  precision,  their  general  relations — so  long 
as  Ids  ternninology  continues  to  be  adopted.  This  test, 
applied  to  Kant,  will  show  that  his  spirit  yet  survives 
in  Germany.  Frederic  Schlegel,  it  is  true,  twenty 
years  ago,  in  his  lectures  upon  literature,  assiu-es  us 
that  even  the  disciples  of  the  great  philosopher  have 
agreed  to  abandon  his  philosophic  nomenclature.  But 
the  German  philosophic  literature,  since  that  date, 
tells  another  tale.  Mr.  Bulwer  is,  therefore,  wrong ; 
and,  without  going  to  Germany,  looking  only  to 
France,  he  will  see  cause  to  revise  his  sentence. 
Cousin — the  philosophic  Cousin,  the  only  great  name 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  101 

in  philosophy  for  modern  France — familiar  as  he  is 
with  North  Germany,  can  hardly  he  presumed  un- 
acquaiated  with  a  fact  so  striking,  if  it  were  a  fact, 
as  the  extinction  of  a  system  once  so  triumphantly 
supreme  as  that  of  Kant ;  and  yet  Mr.  Bulwer, 
admiring  Cousin  as  he  does,  cannot  but  have  noticed 
his  efforts  to  naturalise  Kant  in  France.  Meantime, 
if  it  were  even  true  that  transcendentalism  had  lost 
its  hold  of  the  public  mind  in  Germany,  jyrinid  facie, 
this  would  prove  little  more  than  the  fickleness  of 
that  public  which  must  have  been  wrong  in  one  of 
the  two  cases — either  when  adopting  the  system,  or 
when  rejecting  it.  Whatever  there  may  be  of  truth 
and  value  in  the  system,  will  remain  unimpeached  by 
such  caprices,  whether  of  an  individual  or  of  a  great 
nation ;  and  England  would  still  be  in  the  right  to 
import  the  philosophy,  however  late  in  the  day,  if  it 
were  true  even  (which  I  doubt  greatly)  that  she  is 
importing  it. 

Both  truth  and  value  there  certainly  is  in  one  part 
of  the  Kantian  philosophy ;  and  that  part  is  its 
foundation.  I  had  intended,  at  this  point,  to  intro- 
duce an  outline  of  the  transcendental  philosophy — 
not,  perhaps,  as  entering  by  logical  claim  of  right 
into  any  biographical  sketch,  but  as  a  very  allowable 
digression  in  the  record  of  that  man's  life  to  whom, 
in  the  way  of  hope  and  of  profound  disappointment, 
it  had  been  so  memorable  an  object.  For  two  or 
three  years  before  I  mastered  the  language  of  Kant,* 

^  I  might  liave  mastered  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  without 
waiting  for  the  German  language,  in  which  all  his  capital  works 
are  written  ;  for  there  is  a  Latin  version  of  tlie  whole,  by  Born, 
and  a  most  admirable  digest  of  the  cardinal  work  (admirable  for 


102  DE    QUINCEY, 

it  had  been  a  pole-star  to  my  hopes,  and  in  hypothesi 
agreeably  to  the  uncertain  plans  of  uncertain  know- 
ledge, the  luminous  guide  to  my  future  life — as  a  life 
dedicated  and  set  apart  to  philosophy.  Such  it  was 
some  years  before  I  knew  it  :  for,  at  least  ten  long 
years  after  I  came  into  a  condition  of  valueing  its  true 
pretensions  and  measuring  its  capacities,  this  same 
philosophy  shed  the  gloom  of  something  like  misan- 
thropy upon  my  views  and  estimates  of  human  nature ; 
for  man  was  an  abject  animal,  if  the  limitations  which 
Kant  assigned  to  the  motions  of  his  speculative 
reason  were  as  absolute  and  hopeless  as,  under  his 
scheme  of  the  understanding  and  his  genesis  of  its 
powers,  too  evidently  they  were.  I  belonged  to  a 
reptile  race,  if  the  wings  by  which  we  had  sometimes 
seemed  to  mount,  and  the  buoyancy  which  had  seemed 
to  support  our  flight,  were  indeed  the  fantastic  delu- 
sions which  he  represented  them.  Such,  and  so  deep 
and  so  abiding  in  its  influence  upon  my  life,  having 
been  the  influence  of  this  German  philosophy,  accord- 
ing to  all  logic  of  proportions,  in  selecting  the  objects 
of  my  notice,  I  might  be  excused  for  setting  before 
the  reader,  in  its  full  array,  the  analysis  of  its  capital 
sections.  However,  in  any  memorial  of  a  life  which 
professes  to  keep  in  view  (though  but  as  a  secondary 
purpose)  any  regard  to  popular  taste,  the  logic  of 
proportions  must  bend,  after  all,  to  the  law  of  the 
occasion — to  the  proprieties  of  time  and  place.  For 
the  present,  therefore,  I  shall  restrict  myself  to  the 

its  fidelity  and  the  skill  by  which  that  fidelity  is  attained),  in 
the  same  language,  by  Rhiseldek,  a  Danish  professor.  But  this 
fact,  such  was  the  slight  knowledge  of  all  things  connected  with 
Kant  in  England,  I  did  not  learn  for  some  years. 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE,  103 

few  sentences  in  which  it  may  be  proper  to  gratify 
the  curiosity  of  some  readers,  the  two  or  three  in  a 
hundred,  as  to  the  peculiar  distinctions  of  this  phih> 
sophy.  Even  to  these  two  or  three  out  of  each 
hundred,  I  shall  not  venture  to  ascribe  a  larger 
curiosity  than  with  respect  to  the  most  general 
*  whereabouts '  of  its  position — from  Avhat  point  it 
starts — whence  and  from  what  aspect  it  surveys  the 
gi'ound — and  by  what  links  from  this  starting-point 
it  contrives  to  connect  itself  with  the  main  objects  of 
philosophic  inquiry. 

Immanuel  Kant  was  originally  a  dogmatist  in  the 
school  of  Leibnitz  and  Wolf ;  that  is,  according  to 
his  ti'isection  of  all  philosophy  into  dogmatic,  sceptical, 
and  critical,  he  was,  vipon  all  questions,  disposed  to  a 
strong  affirmative  creed,  without  courting  any  parti- 
cular examination  into  the  grounds  of  this  creed,  or 
into  its  assailable  points.  From  this  slumber,  as  it 
1^  called  by  himself,  he  was  suddenly  aroused  by  the 
Humian  doctrine  of  cause  and  eiiect.  Tliis  celebrated 
essay  on  the  nature  of  necessary  connection — so 
thoroughly  misapprehended  at  the  date  of  its  first 
publication  to  the  woi-ld  by  its  soi-disant  opponents, 
Oswald,  Beattie,  &c.,  and  so  imperfectly  comprehended 
since  then  by  various  soi-disant  defenders — became  in 
effect  the  '  occasional  cause '  (in  the  phrase  of  tlie 
logicians)  of  the  entire  subsequent  philosophic  scheme 
of  Kant — every  section  of  which  arose  upon  the 
accidental  opening  made  to  analogical  trains  of 
thovight,  by  this  memorable  effort  of  scepticism, 
applied  by  Hume  to  one  capital  phenomenon  among 
the  necessities  of  the  human  understanding.  What 
is  the  nature  of  Hume's  scepticism  as  applied  to  this 


104  DE    QUINCEY. 

phenomenon  1  What  is  the  main  thesis  of  his  cele- 
brated essay  on  cause  and  effect  1  For  few,  indeed, 
are  they  who  really  know  anything  about  it.  If  a 
man  really  understands  it,  a  very  few  words  will  avail 
to  explain  the  nodus.  Let  us  try.  It  is  a  necessity 
of  the  human  understanding  (very  probably  not  a 
necessity  of  a  higher  order  of  intelligences)  to  connect 
its  experiences  by  means  of  the  idea  of  cause  and  its 
correlate,  efect :  and  when  Beattie,  Oswald,  Reid,  &c. 
were  exhausting  themselves  in  proofs  of  the  indispens- 
ableness  of  this  idea,  they  were  fighting  with  shadows; 
for  no  man  had  ever  questioned  the  practical  necessity 
for  such  an  idea  to  the  coherency  of  human  thinking. 
Not  the  practical  necessity,  but  the  internal  con- 
sistency of  this  notion,  and  the  original  right  to  such 
a  notion,  was  the  point  of  inquisition.  For,  attend, 
courteous  reader,  and  three  separate  propositions  will 
set  before  your  eyes  the  difficulty.  First  Prop.,  which, 
for  the  sake  of  greater  precision,  permit  me  to  throw 
into  Latin  : — N'on  datur  aliquld  [A]  quo  posito  ponitur 
aliud  [B]  a  priori ;  that  is,  in  other  words,  You 
cannot  lay  your  hands  upon  that  one  object  or  phe- 
nomenon [A]  in  the  whole  circle  of  natural  existences, 
which,  being  assumed,  will  entitle  you  to  assume  a 
2yriori,  any  other  object  whatsoever  [BJ  as  succeeding 
it.  You  could  not,  I  say,  of  any  object  or  phenomenon 
whatever,  assume  this  succession  a  jyriori — that  is, 
previously  to  exjierience.  Second  Prop.  But,  if  the  suc- 
cession of  B  to  A  be  made  known  to  you,  not  a  p>riori 
(by  the  involution  of  B  in  the  idea  of  A),  but  by 
expex'ience,  then  you  cannot  ascribe  necessity  to  the 
succession :  the  connection  between  them  is  not 
necessary  but  contingent.     For  the  very  widest  ex- 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  105 

perience — an  experience  which  should  stretch  over  all 
ages,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  time — caa 
never  establish  a  nexus  having  the  least  approximation 
to  necessity ;  no  more  than  a  rope  of  sand  could  gain 
the  cohesion  of  adamant,  by  repeating  its  links  through 
a  billion  of  successions.  Prop.  Third.  Hence  ({.  e. 
from  the  two  preceding  propositions),  it  appears  that 
no  instance  or  case  of  nexus  that  ever  can  have  been 
offered  to  the  notice  of  any  human  understanding, 
has  in  it,  or,  by  possibility,  could  have  had  anything 
of  necessity.  Had  the  nexus  been  necessary,  you 
would  have  seen  it  beforehand ;  whereas,  by  Prop.  I. 
No)i  datur  cdiquid,  quo  posito  ponitur  cdiud  d,  jrt'iori. 
This  being  so,  now  comes  the  startling  fact,  that  the 
notion  of  a  cause  includes  the  notion  of  necessity. 
For,  if  A  (the  cause)  be  connected  with  B  (the  effect) 
only  in  a  casual  or  accidental  way,  you  do  not  feet 
warranted  in  calling  it  a  cause.  If  heat  applied  to 
ice  (A)  were  sometimes  followed  by  a  tendency  to 
liquefaction  (B)  and  sometimes  not,  you  would  not 
consider  A  connected  with  B  as  a  cause,  but  only  as 
some  variable  accompaniment  of  the  true  and  unknown 
cause,  which  might  allowably  be  present  or  be  absent. 
This,  then,  is  the  startling  and  mysterious  phenomenon 
of  the  human  understanding — that,  in  a  certain 
notion,  which  is  indispensable  to  the  coherency  of  our 
whole  experience,  indispensable  to  the  establishing 
any  nexus  between  the  diff'erent  parts  and  successions 
of  our  whole  train  of  notices,  we  include  an  accessary 
notion  of  necessity,  which  yet  has  no  justification  or 
warrant,  no  assignable  derivation  from  any  known 
or  possible  case  of  human  experience.  We  have 
one  idea  at  least — viz.  the  itlea  of  causation — which 


106  DE    QUINCEY. 

transcends  our  possible  experience  by  one  important 
element,  the  element  of  necessity,  that  never  can  have 
been  derived  from  the  only  source  of  ideas  recognised 
by  the  philosophy  of  this  day.  A  Lockian  never  can 
find  his  way  out  of  this  dilemma.  The  experience 
(whether  it  be  the  experience  of  sensation  or  the 
experience  of  reflection)  which  he  adopts  for  his 
master-key,  never  will  unlock  this  case ;  for  the  sum 
total  of  human  expei'ience,  collected  from  all  ages,  can 
avail  only  to  tell  us  what  is,  but  never  what  "must  be. 
The  idea  of  necessity  is  absolutely  transcendant  to 
experience,  per  se,  and  must  be  derived  from  some 
other  source.  From  what  source  ?  Could  Hume  tell 
us  %  No  :  he,  who  had  started  the  game  so  acutely 
(for  with  every  allowance  for  the  detection  made  in 
Thomas  Aquinas,  of  the  original  suggestion,  as  re- 
corded in  the  BiogrcvpJda  Literaria  of  Coleridge,  we 
must  still  allow  great  meiit  of  a  secondary  kind  to 
Hume  for  his  modern  i-evival  and  restatement  of  the 
doctrine),  this  same  acute  philosopher  broke  down 
confessedly  in  his  attempt  to  hunt  the  game  down. 
His  solution  is  worthless. 

Kant,  however,  having  caught  the  original  scent 
from  Hume,  was  more  fortunate.  He  saw,  at  a 
glance,  that  here  was  a  test  applied  to  the  Lockian 
philosophy,  which  showed,  at  the  very  least,  its  in- 
sufficiency. If  it  were  good  even  for  so  much  as  it 
explained — which  Burke  is  disposed  to  receive  as  a 
sufiicient  warrant  for  the  favom-able  reception  of  a 
new  hypothesis — at  any  rate,  it  now  appeared  that 
there  was  something  which  it  could  not  explain.  But 
next,  Kant  took  a  large  step  in  advance  jjroprio  morte. 
Reflecting  upon  the  one  idea  adduced  by  Hume,  as 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  107 

transcending  the  ordinary  source  of  ideas,  he  began 
to  ask  himself,  whether  it  were  likely  that  this  idea 
should  stand  alone  1     Were  there  not  other  ideas  in 
the    same    predicament ;    other   ideas    including    the 
same   element    of   necessity,   and,   therefore,   equally 
disowning  the  parentage  assigned  by  Locke?     Upon 
investigation,  he   found   that  there  were  :    he  found 
that  there  wei'e  eleven   others  in  exactly  the  same 
circumstances.      The   entire   twelve   he   denominated 
categories ;    and  the  mode   by  which  he  ascertained 
their  number — that  there  were  so  many  and  no  more 
— is  of  itself  so  remarkable  as  to  merit  notice  in  the 
most  superficial  sketch.     But,  in    fact,  this  one  ex- 
planation will  put  the  reader  iu  possession  of  Kant's 
system,  so  far  as  he  could  understand  it  without  an 
express  and  toilsome  study.     With  this  explanation, 
therefore,  of  the  famous  categories,  I  shall  close  my 
slight   sketch   of   the  system.     Has   the  reader  ever 
considered  the  meaning  of  the  term  Category — a  term 
so  ancient  and  so  venerable  from  its  connection  with 
the  most   domineering  philosophy  that   has   yet  ap- 
peared amongst  men  1     The  doctrine  of  the  Categories 
(or,  in  its  Roman  appellation,  of  the  Predicaments),  is 
one  of  the  few  wrecks  from  the  Peripatetic  philosophy 
which  istill  survives  as  a  doctrine  taught   by  public 
authority  in  the  most  ancient  academic  institutions  of 
Europe.     It  continues  to  form  a  section  in  the  code 
of  public  instruction ;  and  perhaps  under  favour  of 
a  pure   accident.      For   though,  strictly  speaking,  a 
metaphysical  speculation,  it  has  always  been  prefixed 
as  a  sort  of  preface  to  the  Organon  (or  logical  treatises) 
of  Aristotle,  and  has  thus  accidentally  shared  in  the 
immortality  conceded  to  that  most  peifect  of  human 


108  DK    QUINCEY. 

works.     Far  enough  were  the  Categories  from  meriting 
such  distinction.     Kant  was  well  aware  of  this  :  he 
was  aware  that  the  Aristotelian  Categories  were  a 
useless  piece  of  scholastic  lumber :  unsound  in  their 
first  conception  ;  and,  though  illustrated  through  long 
centuries    by   the    schoolmen,    and    by    still    earlier 
Grecian  philosophers,  never  in  any  one  known  instance 
turned  to  a  profitable  account.      Why,   then,  being 
aware  that  even  in  idea  they  were  false,  besides  being 
practically  unsuitable,  did  Kant  adopt  or  boriow  a 
name  laden  with  this  superfetation  of  reproach — all 
that  is  false  in  theory  superadded  to  all  that  is  useless 
in  practice  \     He  did  so  for  a  remarkable  reason  :  he 
felt,  according  to  his  own  explanation,  that  Aristotle 
had  been  yrojnng  [the  German  word  expressive  of  his 
blind  procedure  is  herumtappen] — groping  in  the  dark, 
but  under  a  semi-conscious  instinct  of  truth.     Here 
is  a  most  remarkable  case  or  situation  of  the  human 
intellect,  happening  alike  to  individuals  and  to  entire 
generations — in  the  situation  of  yearning  or  craving, 
as  it  were,  for  a  great  idea  as  yet  unknown,  but  dimly 
and  uneasily  prefigured.     Sometimes  the  very  brink, 
as  it  may  be  called,  of  such  an  idea  is  approached  ; 
sometimes  it  is  even  imperfectly  discovered ;  but  with 
marks  in  the  very  midst  of  its  imperfections,  which 
serve  as  indications  to  a  person  coming  better  armed 
for  ascertaining  the  sub-conscious  thought  which  had 
governed    their  tentative  motions.     As  it  stands  in 
Aristotle's  scheme,  the  idea  of  a  category  is  a  mere 
lifeless  abstraction.     Rising  through  a  succession  of 
species   to   genera,  and   from    these    to    still    higher 
genera,  you  arrive  finally  at  a  highest  genus — a  naked 
abstraction,  beyond  which  no  further  regress  is  pos- 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  109 

sible.  This  highest  genus,  this  genus  generalissimum, 
is,  in  peripatetic  language,  a  category  ;  and  no  purpose 
or  use  has  ever  been  assigned  to  any  one  of  these 
categories,  of  which  ten  were  enumerated  at  first, 
beyond  that  of  classification — i.  e.  a  purpose  of  mere 
convenience.  Even  for  as  trivial  a  purpose  as  this, 
it  gave  room  for  suspecting  a  failure,  when  it  was 
afterwards  found  that  the  original  ten  categories  did 
not  exhaust  the  possibilities  of  the  case ;  that  other 
supplementary  categoi-ies  (post-p'cedicajnenti)  became 
necessary.  And,  perhaps,  'more  last  words'  might 
even  yet  be  added,  supplementary  supplements,  and 
so  forth,  by  a  hair-splitting  intellect.  Failures  as 
gross  as  these,  revisals  still  open  to  revision,  and 
amendments  calling  for  amendments,  were  at  once  a 
broad  confession  that  here  there  was  no  falling  in 
with  any  great  law  of  natui-e.  The  paths  of  nature 
may  som-etimes  be  arrived  at  in  a  tentative  way ;  but 
they  are  broad  and  determinate ;  and,  when  found, 
vindicate  themselves.  Still,  in  all  this  erroneous 
subtilisation,  and  these  abortive  efforts,  Kant  per- 
ceived a  grasping  at  some  real  idea — fugitive  indeed 
and  coy,  which  had  for  the  present  absolutely  escaped  ; 
but  he  caught  glimpses  of  it  continually  in  the  rear; 
he  felt  its  necessity  to  any  account  of  the  human 
understanding  that  could  be  satisfactory  to  one  who 
had  meditated  on  Locke's  theory  as  probed  and 
searched  by  Leibnitz.  A.nd  in  this  uneasy  state — 
half  sceptical,  half  creative,  rejecting  and  substituting, 
pulling  down  and  building  up — what  was  in  sum  and 
finally  the  course  which  he  took  for  bringing  his 
trials  and  essays  to  a  crisis?  He  states  this  himself, 
somewhere  in  the  Introduction  to  his  Criiik  tier  reineii 


110  DE    QUINCEY. 

Vernunft ;    and    the   passage   is   a   memorable   one. 
Fifteen  years  at  the  least  have  passed  since  I  read  it ; 
and,  therefore,  I  cannot  pretend  to  produce  the  words  ; 
but  the  substance  I  shall  ^\vq  ;  and  I  appeal  to  the 
candour  of  all  his  readers,  whether  they  have  been 
able  to  apprehend  his  meaning.     I  certainly  did  not 
for  years.     But,  now   that   I  do,  the  passage   places 
his  procedure  in  a  most  striking  and  edifying  light. 
Astronomers,  says   Kant,  had  gone  on  for  ages,  as- 
suming that  the  earth  was  the  centi-al  body  of  our 
system ;  and  insuperable  were  the  difficulties  which 
attended  that  assumption.     At  length,  it  occurred  to 
try  what  would  result  from  inverting  the  assumption. 
Let  the  earth,  instead  of  offering  a  fixed  centre  for 
the  revolving  motions  of  other  heavenly  bodies,  be 
supposed  itself  to  revolve  about  some  one  of  these,  as 
the  sun.     That  supposition  was  tried,  and  gradually 
all  the  phenomena  which,  before,  had  been  incoherent, 
anomalous,  or  contradictory,  began  to  express  them- 
selves as  parts  of  a  most  harmonious  system.     '  Some- 
thing,' he  goes  on  to  say,  '  analogous  to  this  I  have 
practised  with  regard  to  the  subject  of  my  inquiry — • 
the  human   understanding.     All   others   had  sought 
their  central  principle  of  the  intellectual  phenomena 
out  of  the  understanding,  in  something  external  to 
the  mind.     I  first  turned  my  inquiries  upon  the  mind 
itself.     I  first  applied  my  examination  to  the  very 
analysis  of  the  understanding.'     In  words,  not  pre- 
cisely these,  but  pretty  nearly  equivalent  to  them, 
does  Kant  state,  by  contradistinction,  the  value  and 
the  nature  of  his  own  procedure.     He  first,  according 
to  his  own  representation,  thought  of  applying  his 
investigation  to  the  mind  itself.     Here  was  a  passage 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  Ill 

which  for  years  (I  may  say)  continued  to  stagger  and 
confound  me.  What !  he,  Kant,  in  the  latter  end  of 
the  18th  century,  about  the  year  1787 — he  the  first 
who  had  investigated  the  mind  !  This  was  not  arro- 
gance so  much  as  it  was  insanity.  Had  he  said — I, 
first,  upon  just  principles,  or  with  a  fortunate  result, 
investigated  the  human  understanding,  he  would  have 
said  no  more  than  every  fresh  theorist  is  bound  to 
suppose,  as  his  preliminary  apology  for  claiming  the 
attention  of  a  busy  world.  Indeed,  if  a  writer,  on 
any  part  of  knowledge,  does  not  hold  himself  superior 
to  all  his  predecessors,  we  are  entitled  to  say — Then, 
why  do  you  presume  to  trouble  us  %  It  may  look  Hke 
modesty,  but  is,  in  effect,  downinght  effrontery  for 
you  to  think  yourself  no  better  than  other  critics ; 
you  were  at  liberty  to  think  so  whilst  no  claimant  of 
public  notice — as  being  so,  it  is  most  arrogant  in  you 
to  be  modest.  This  would  be  the  criticism  applied 
justly  to  a  man  who,  in  Kant's  situation,  as  the  author 
of  a  new  system,  should  use  a  language  of  unseason- 
able modesty  or  deprecation.  To  have  spoken  boldly 
of  himself  was  a  duty  ;  we  could  not  tolerate  his  doing 
otherwise.  But  to  speak  of  himself  in  the  exclusive 
terms  I  have  described,  does  certainly  seem,  and  for 
years  did  seem  to  myself,  little  short  of  insanity.  Of 
this  I  am  sure  that  no  student  of  Kant,  having  the 
passage  before  him,  can  have  known  heretofore  what 
consistent,  what  rational  interpretation  to  give  it ; 
and,  in  candour,  he  ought  to  own  himself  my  debtor 
for  the  light  he  will  now  receive.  Yet,  so  easy  is  it 
to  imagine,  after  a  meaning  is  once  pointed  out,  and 
the  station  given  from  which  it  shows  itself  as  the 
meaning — so  easy,  under  these  circumstances,  is  it  to 


112  DE    QUINCEY. 

imagine  that  one  has,  or  that  one  could  have,  found 
it  for  one's  self — that  I  have  little  expectation  of 
reaping  much  gratitude  for  my  explanation.  I  say 
this,  not  as  of  much  importance  one  way  or  the  other 
in  a  single  case  of  the  kind,  but  because  a  general 
consideration  of  this  natui'e  has  sometimes  operated 
to  make  me  more  indifferent  or  careless  as  to  the 
publication  of  commentaries  on  difficult  systems,  when 
I  had  found  myself  able  to  throw  much  light  on  the 
difficulties.  The  very  success  with  which  I  should 
have  accomplished  the  task — the  perfect  removal  of 
the  obstacles  in  the  student's  path — were  the  very 
grounds  of  my  assurance  that  the  service  would  be 
little  valued.  For  I  have  found  what  it  was  occasion- 
ally, in  conversation,  to  be  too  luminous — to  have 
explained,  for  instance,  too  clearly  a  dark  place  in 
Kicardo.  In  such  a  case,  I  have  known  a  man  of  the 
very  greatest  powers,  mistake  the  intellectual  effort 
he  had  put  forth  to  apprehend  my  elucidation,  and  to 
meet  it  half  way,  for  his  own  unassisted  conquest  over 
the  difficulties ;  and,  within  an  hour  or  two  after,  I 
have  had,  perhaps,  to  stand,  as  an  attack  upon  myself, 
arguments  entirely  and  recently  furnislied  by  myself. 
No  case  is  more  possible  :  even  to  apprehend  a  complex 
explanation,  a  man  cannot  be  passive  ;  he  must  exert 
considerable  energy  of  mind ;  and,  in  the  fresh  con- 
sciousness of  this  energy,  it  is  the  most  natural  mistake 
iu  the  world  for  him  to  feel  the  argument  wliich  he 
has,  by  considerable  effort,  appropriated  to  be  an 
argument  which  he  has  originated.  Kant  is  the  most 
unhappy  champion  of  his  own  doctrines,  the  most 
infelicitous  expounder  of  his  own  meaning,  that  has 
ever  existed.      Neither   has  any  other  commentator 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  113 

succeeded  in  throwing  a  moonlight  radiance  upon  his 
philosophy.  Yet  certain  I  am,  that,  wei-e  I,  or  any 
man,  to  disperse  all  his  darkness,  exactly  in  that 
proportion  in  which  we  did  so — exactly  in  the  propor- 
tion in  which  we  smoothed  all  hindrances — exactly  in 
that  proportion  would  it  cease  to  he  known  or  felt 
that  there  had  ever  been  any  hindrances  to  be 
smoothed.  This,  however,  is  digression,  to  which  I 
have  been  tempted  by  the  interesting  nature  of  the 
grievance.  In  a  jesting  way,  this  grievance  is  obliquely 
noticed  in  the  celebrated  couplet — 

*  Had  you  seen  but  these  roads  before  they  were  made, 
You'd  lift  up  your  hands  and  bless  Marshal  Wade.' 

The  pleasant  bull  here  committed  conceals  a  most 
melancholy  truth,  and  one  of  large  extent.  Innumer- 
able ai-e  the  services  to  truth,  to  justice,  or  society, 
which  never  can  be  adequately  valued  by  those  who 
reap  their  benefits,  simply  because  the  transition  fi*om 
the  early  and  bad  state  to  the  final  or  improved  state 
cannot  be  reti-aced  or  kept  alive  before  the  eyes.  The 
record  perishes.  The  last  point  gained  is  seen ;  but 
the  starting-point,  the  point yVo?/*  which  it  was  gained, 
is  forgotten.  And  the  traveller  never  can  know  the 
true  amount  of  his  obligations  to  Marshal  Wade, 
because,  though  seeing  the  roads  which  the  Marshal 
has  created,  he  can  only  guess  at  those  which  he 
superseded.  Now,  returning  to  this  impenetrable 
passage  of  Kant,  I  will  briefly  inform  the  reader  that 
he  may  read  it  into  sense  by  connecting  it  with  a  part 
of  Kant's  system,  from  which  it  is  in  his  own  delivery 
entirely  dislocated.  Going  forwards  some  thirty  or 
forty  pages,  he  will   find  Kant's  development  of  his 

VOL.   I.  II 


114  DE    QUINCEY. 

own  categories.  And,  by  placing  in  juxtaposition 
with  that  development  this  blind  sentence,  he  will 
find  a  reciprocal  light  arising.  All  philosophers, 
worthy  of  that  name,  have  fovind  it  necessary  to 
allow  of  some  great  cardinal  ideas  that  transcended 
all  the  Lockian  origination — ideas  that  were  larger  in 
their  compass  than  any  possible  notices  of  sense  or 
any  reHex  notices  of  the  understanding ;  and  those 
who  have  denied  such  ideas,  will  be  found  invariably 
to  have  supported  their  denial  by  a  vitium  suh'eptionis, 
and  to  have  deduced  their  pretended  genealogies  of 
such  ideas  by  means  of  a  petitio  principii — silently 
and  stealthily  putting  into  some  step  of  their  leger-de- 
main  process  everything  that  they  would  pretend  to 
have  extracted  from  it.  But,  previously  to  Kant, 
it  is  certain  that  all  philosophers  had  left  the  origin 
of  these  higher  or  transcendent  ideas  unexplained. 
Whence  came  they  ?  In  the  systems  to  which,  Locke 
replies,  they  had  been  called  innate  or  co7inate.  These 
were  the  Cartesian  systems.  Cudworth,  again,  who 
maintained  certain  '  immutahle  ideas '  of  morality, 
had  said  nothing  about  their  origin ;  and  Plato  had 
supposed  them  to  be  reminiscences  from  some  higher 
mode  of  existence.  Kant  first  attempted  to  assign 
them  an  origin  within  the  mind  itself,  though  not  in 
any  Lockian  fashion  of  reflection  upon  sensible  im- 
prejr-sions.  And  this  is  doubtless  what  he  means  by 
saying  that  he  first  had  investigated  the  mind — that 
is,  he  first  for  such  a  purpose. 

Where,  then,  is  it,  in  what  act  or  function  of  the 
mind,  that  Kant  finds  the  matrix  of  these  trans- 
cendent ideas?  Simply  in  the  logical  forms  of  the 
understanding.     Every  power  exerts  its  agency  under 


THE   GERMAN   LANGUAGE.  115 

some  laws — that  is,  in  the  language  of  Kant,  by 
certain  forms.  We  leap  by  certain  laws — viz.  of 
equilibrium,  of  muscular  motion,  of  gravitation.  We 
dance  by  certain  laws.  So  also  we  reason  by  certain 
laws.  These  laws,  or  formal  principles,  under  a 
particular  condition,  become  the  categories. 

Here,  then,  is  a  short  derivation,  in  a  very  few 
words,  of  those  ideas  transcending  sense,  which  all 
philosophy,  the  earliest,  has  been  unable  to  dispense 
with,  and  yet  none  could  account  for.  Thus,  for 
example,  every  act  of  reasoning  must,  in  the  first 
place,  express  itself  in  distinct  px'opositions ;  that  is, 
in  such  as  contain  a  subject  (or  that  concerning  which 
you  affirm  or  deny  something),  a  predicate  (that  which 
you  affirm  or  deny),  and  a  copula,  which  connects 
them.  These  propositions  must  have  what  is  techni- 
cally called,  in  logic,  a  certain  quantity,  or  compass 
(viz.  must  be  universal,  pai^ticular,  or  singular) ;  and 
again  they  must  have  what  is  called  quality  (that  is, 
must  be  afl&rmative,  or  negative,  or  infinite) :  and 
thus  arises  a  ground  for  certain  corresponding  ideas, 
wlaich  are  Kant's  categories  of  quantity  and  quality. 

But,  to  take  an  illustration  more  appropriately  from 
the  very  idea  which  first  aroused  Kant  to  the  sense  of 
a  vast  hiatus  in  the  received  philosophies — the  idea  of 
cause,  which  had  been  thrown  as  an  apple  of  discord 
amongst  the  schools,  by  Hume.  How  did  Kant 
deduce  this  ]  Simply  thus  :  it  is  a  doctrine  of  uni- 
versal logic,  that  there  are  three  varieties  of  syllogism 
— viz.  1st,  Categoric,  or  directly  declarative  [^-1  is  £]  ; 
2nd,  Hypothetic,  or  conditionally  declarative  [If  C  is 
D,  then  A  is  B\ ;  3rd,  Disjunctive,  or  declarative,  by 
means  of  a  choice  which  exhausts  the  possible  cases 

II   2 


116  DE    QUINCEV. 

[A  is  either  B,  or  C,  or  D  ;  hut  not  C  or  D  ;  ergo  B\ 
Now,  the  idea  of  causation,  or,  in  Kant's  language, 
the  category  of  Cause  and  Effect,  is  deduced  immedi- 
ately, and  most  naturally,  as  the  reader  will  acknow- 
ledge on  examination,  from  the  2nd  or  hypothetic  form 
of  syllogism,  when  the  relation  of  dependency  is  the 
same  as  in  the  idea  of  causation,  and  the  necessary 
connection  a  direct  type  of  that  which  takes  place 
between  a  cause  and  its  effect. 

Thus,  then,  without  going  one  step  further,  the 
reader  will  find  grounds  enough  for  reflection  and  for 
reverence  towards  Kant  in  these  two  great  results  : 
1st,  That  an  order  of  ideas  has  been  established,  which 
all  deep  philosophy  has  demanded,  even  when  it  could 
not  make  good  its  claim.  This  postulate  is  fulfilled. 
2ndly,  The  postulate  is  fulfilled  Avilhout  mysticism  or 
Platonic  reveries.  Ideas,  however  indispensable  to 
human  needs,  and  even  to  the  connection  of  our 
thoughts,  which  came  to  us  from  nobody  knew  whence, 
must  for  ever  have  been  suspicious ;  and,  as  in  the 
memorable  instance  cited  from  Hume,  must  have  been 
liable  for  ever  to  a  question  of  validity.  But,  deduced 
as  they  now  are  from  a  matrix  within  our  own  minds, 
they  cannot  reasonably  fear  any  assaults  of  scepticism. 

Here  I  shall  stop.  A  reader  new  to  these  inquiries 
may  think  all  this  a  trifle.  But  he  who  reflects  a 
little,  will  see  that,  even  thus  far,  and  going  no  step 
beyond  this  point,  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  the  Cate- 
gories answers  a  standing  question  hanging  aloof  as  a 
challenge  to  human  philosophy,  fills  up  a  lacuna 
pointed  out  from  the  era  of  Plato.  It  solves  a  pro- 
blem which  has  startled  and  perplexed  every  age  : 
viz.  this- — that  man  is  in  poPses.sion,  nay,  in  the  hourly 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  117 

exercise,  of  ideas  larger  than  he  can  show  any  title  to. 
And  in  another  way,  the  reader  may  measure  the 
extent  of  this  doctrine,  by  reflecting  that,  even  so  far 
as  now  stated,  it  is  precisely  coextensive  with  the 
famous  scheme  of  Locke.  For  what  is  the  capital 
thesis  of  that  scheme?  Simply  this — that  all  necessity 
for  supposing  immediate  impressions  made  upon  our 
understandings  by  God,  or  other  supernatural,  or 
antenatal,  or  connatal,  agencies,  is  idle  and  romantic  ; 
for  that,  upon  examining  the  furniture  of  our  minds, 
nothing  will  be  found  there  which  cannot  adequately 
be  explained  out  of  our  daily  experience ;  and,  until 
we  find  something  that  cannot  be  solved  by  this 
explanation,  it  is  childish  to  go  in  quest  of  higher 
causes.  Thus  says  Locke  :  and  his  whole  work,  upon 
its  first  plan,  is  no  more  than  a  continual  pleading  of 
this  single  thesis,  pursuing  it  through  all  the  plausible 
objections.  Being,  therefore,  as  large  in  its  extent  as 
Locke,  the  reader  must  not  complain  of  the  trans- 
cendental scheme  as  too  narrow,  even  in  that  limited 
section  of  it  here  brought  under  his  notice. 

For  the  purpose  of  repelling  it,  he  must  do  one  of 
two  things  :  either  he  must  show  that  these  categories 
or  transcendent  notions  are  not  susceptible  of  the 
derivation  and  genesis  here  assigned  to  them — that 
is,  from  the  forms  of  the  logos  or  formal  understand- 
ing ;  or,  if  content  to  abide  by  that  derivation,  he 
must  allege  that  there  are  other  categories  besides 
those  enumerated,  and  unprovided  with  any  similar 
parentage. 

Thus  much  in  reply  to  him  who  complains  of  the 
doctrine  here  stated  ;  as,  1st,  Too  narrow  ;  or,  2nd,  As 
insufiiciently  established.     But,  3rd,  in  reply  to  him 


118  DE    QUINCEY. 

who  wishes  to  see  it  further  pursvied  or  applied,  I  say- 
that  the  possible  applications  are  perhaps  infinite. 
With  respect  to  those  made  by  Kant  himself,  they 
are  chiefly  contained  in  his  main  and  elementary 
work,  the  Critik  der  reinen  Vernunft  ;  and  they  are  of 
a  nature  to  make  any  man  melancholy.  Indeed,  let 
a  man  consider  merely  this  one  notion  of  causation  ; 
let  him  reflect  on  its  origin ;  let  him  remember  that, 
agreeably  to  this  origin,  it  follows  that  we  have  no 
light  to  view  anything  in  rerumnaturd  as  objectively, 
or  in  itself  a  cause ;  that  when,  upon  the  fullest 
philosophic  proof,  we  call  A  the  cause  of  B,  we  do  in 
fact  only  subsume  A  under  the  notion  of  a  cause ;  we 
invest  it  with  that  function  under  that  relation,  that 
the  whole  proceeding  is  merely  with  respect  to  a 
human  v;nderstanding,  and  by  way  of  indispensable 
7iexus  to  the  several  parts  of  our  experience ;  finally, 
that  there  is  the  greatest  reason  to  doubt,  whether 
the  idea  of  causation  is  at  all  applicable  to  any  other 
world  than  this,  or  any  other  than  a  human  expe- 
rience. Let  a  man  meditate  but  a  little  on  this  or 
other  aspects  of  this  transcendental  philosophy,  and 
he  will  find  the  steadfast  earth  itself  rocking  as  it 
were  beneath  his  feet ;  a  world  about  him,  which  is 
in  some  sense  a  world  of  deception ;  and  a  world 
before  him,  which  seems  to  promise  a  world  of  con- 
fusion, or  'a  world  not  realised.^  All  this  he  might 
deduce  for  himself  without  further  aid  from  Kant. 
However,  the  particular  purposes  to  which  Kant 
applies  his  philosophy,  from  the  difl[iculties  which 
beset  them,  are  unfitted  for  anything  below  a  regular 
treatise.  Sufiice  it  to  say  here,  that,  difficult  as  these 
speculations    are    from    one    or    two    embarrassing 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  119 

doctrines  on  the  Transcendental  Consciousness,  and 
depressing  as  they  are  from  their  general  tendency, 
they  are  yet  painfully  iri'itating  to  the  curiosity,  and 
especially  so  from  a  sort  of  experimentum  crucis,  which 
they  yield  in  the  progress  of  their  development  on 
behalf  of  the  entire  doctrine  of  Kant — a  test  which, 
up  to  this  hour,  has  offered  defiance  to  any  hostile 
hand.  The  test  or  defiance  which  I  speak  of,  takes 
the  shape  of  certain  antinomies  (so  they  are  termed), 
severe  adamantine  arguments,  affirmative  and  nega- 
tive, on  two  or  three  celebrated  problems,  with  no 
appeal  to  any  possible  decision,  but  one,  which  involves 
the  Kantian  doctrines.  A  qucestio  vexata  is  proposed 
— for  instance,  the  infinite  divisibility  of  matter  ;  each 
side  of  this  question,  thesis  and  antithesis,  is  argued  ; 
the  logic  is  irresistible,  the  links  are  perfect,  and  for 
each  side  alternately  there  is  a  verdict,  thus  terminat- 
ing in  the  most  triumphant  reductio  ad  ahsurdum — 
viz.  that  A,  at  one  and  the  same  time  and  in  the 
same  sense,  is  and  is  not  B,  from  which  no  escape  is 
available,  but  through  a  Kantian  solution.  On  any 
other  philosophy,  it  is  demonstrated  that  this  oppro- 
brium of  the  human  understanding,  this  scandal  of 
logic,  cannot  be  removed.  This  celebrated  chapter  of 
antinomies  has  been  of  great  service  to  the  mere 
polemics  of  the  transcendental  philosophy :  it  is  a 
glove  or  gage  of  defiance,  constantly  lying  on  the 
ground,  challenging  the  rights  of  victory  and  suprem- 
acy so  long  as  it  is  n'^t  taken  up  by  any  antagonist, 
and  bringing  matters  to  a  short  decision  when  it  is. 

One  section,  and  that  the  introductory  section, 
of  the  transcendental  philosophy,  I  have  purposely 
omitted,  though  in  strictness  not  to  be  insulated  or 


lliO  DE   QUINCKY. 

dislocated  from  the  faithful  exposition  even  of  that 
which  I  have  given.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  Space  and 
Time.  These  profound  themes,  so  confounding  to  the 
human  understanding,  are  treated  by  Kant  under  two 
aspects — 1st,  as  Anchauungen,  or  Intuitions  (so  the 
German  word  is  usually  translated  for  want  of  a 
better) ;  2ndly,  as  forms,  a  ^/riori,  of  all  our  other 
intuitions.  Often  have  I  laughed  internally  at  the 
characteristic  exposure  of  Kant's  style  of  thinking — 
that  he,  a  man  of  so  much  worldly  sagacity,  could 
think  of  offering,  and  of  the  German  scholastic  habits, 
tliat  any  modern  nation  could  think  of  accepting 
such  cabalistical  phrases,  such  a  true  and  very 
'  Igttotium  per  Ignotius,''  in  part  payment  of  an  ex- 
planatory account  of  Time  and  Space.  Kant  repeats 
these  words — as  a  charm  before  which  all  darkness 
flies ;  and  he  supposes  continually  the  case  of  a  man 
denying  his  explanations  or  demanding  proofs  of  them, 
never  once  the  sole  imaginable  case — viz.  of  all  men 
demanding  an  explanation  of  these  explanations. 
Deny  them  !  Combat  them  !  How  should  a  man 
deny,  why  should  he  combat,  what  might,  for  any- 
thing to  the  contrary  appearing,  contain  a  promissory 
note  at  two  months  after  date  for  100  guineas?  No  ; 
it  will  cost  a  little  preliminary  work  before  s^ich 
explanations  will  much  avail  any  scheme  of  philosophy, 
either  for  the  ^x/'o  or  the  con.  And  yet  I  do  myself 
really  profess  to  understand  the  dark  words ;  and  a 
great  service  it  would  be  to  sound  philosophy  amongst 
us,  if  this  one  word  anscliauung  were  adequately 
unfolded  and  naturalised  (as  naturalised  it  might  be) 
in  the  English  philosophic  dictionary,  by  some  full 
Grecian  equivalent.     Strange  that  no  man  acquainted 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  121 

with  German  philosophy,  shouM  yet  have  been  struck 
by  the  fact — or,  being  struck,  should  not  have  felt  it 
important  to  call  public  attention  to  the  fact  of  our 
inevitable  feebleness  in  a  branch  of  study  for  which 
as  yet  we  want  the  indispensable  words.  Our  feeble- 
ness is  at  once  argued  by  this  want,  and  partly  caused. " 
Meantime,  as  respects  the  Kantian  way  of  viewing 
space,  by  much  the  most  important  innovation  which 
it  makes  upon  the  old  doctrines  is — that  it  considers 
space  as  a  stibjective  not  an  objective  aliquid  ;  that  is, 
as  having  its  whole  available  foundation  lying  ulti- 
mately in  ourselves,  not  in  any  external  or  alien 
tenure.  This  one  distinction,  as  applied  to  space,  for 
ever  secures  (what  nothing  else  can  secure  or  explain) 
the  cogency  of  geometrical  evidence.  Whatever  is 
true  for  any  determinations  of  a  space  originally 
included  in  ourselves,  must  be  true  for  such  deter- 
minations for  ever,  since  they  cannot  become  objects 
of  consciousness  to  us  but  in  and  by  that  very  mode 
of  conceiving  space,  that  very  form  of  schematism 
which  originally  presented  us  with  these  determin- 
ations of  space,  or  any  whatever.  In  the  uniformity 
of  our  own  space-conceiving  faculty,  we  have  a  pledge 
of  the  absolute  and  necessary  uniformity  (or  internal 
agreement  among  themselves)  of  all  future  or  possible 
determinations  of  space  ;  because  they  could  no  other- 
wise become  to  us  conceivable  forms  of  space,  than 
by  adapting  themselves  to  the  known  conditions  of 
our  conceiving  faculty.  Here  we  have  the  iiecessity 
which  is  indispensable  to  all  geometrical  demonstra- 
tion :  it  is  a  necessity  founded  in  our  human  organ, 
which  cannot  admit  or  conceive  a  space,  unless  as 
preconforming  to  these  original  forms  or  schematisms. 


122  DE    QUINCEY. 

AVhereas,  on   the   contrary,  if  space  were  something 
objective,  and  consequently  being  a  separate  existence, 
independent  of  a  human  organ,  then  it  is  altogether 
impossible  to  find  any  intelligible  source  of  obligation 
or  cogency  in  the  evidence — such  as  is  indispensable 
to   the    very   nature    of    geometrical   demonstration. 
Thus  we  will  suppose  that  a  regular  demonstration 
has  gradually,  from  step  to  step  downwards,  through 
a  series  of  propositions — No.  8  resting  upon  7,  that 
upon    5,  5  upon  3 — at    length   reduced    you   to   the 
elementary  axiom,  that   Two    straight    lines    cannot 
enclose  a  space.     Now,  if  space  be  subjective  originally 
— that  is  to   say,   founded   (as  respects  us   and    our 
geometx-y)  in  ourselves — then  it  is  impossible  that  two 
such  lines  can  enclose  a  space,  because  the  possibility 
of  anything  whatever  relating  to  the  determinations 
of   space  is  exactly   co-extensive   with    (and    exactly 
expressed  by)  our  power  to  conceive  it.     Being  thus 
able   to  affirm  its  impossibility  viniversally,  we  can 
build   a   demonstration   upon  it.     But,  on  the  other 
hypothesis,  of  space  being  objective,  it  is  impossible  to 
guess  whence  we  are  to  draw  our  proof  of  the  alleged 
inaptitude  in  two  straight  lines  for  enclosing  a  space. 
The  most  we  could  say  is,  that  hitherto  no  instance 
has  been  found  of  an  enclosed  space  circumscribed  by 
two  straight  lines.     It  would  not   do  to  allege  our 
human  inability   to   conceive,   or   in  imagination   to 
draw,  such  a  circumscription.     For,  besides  that  such 
a  mode  of  argument  is  exactly  the  one  supposed  to 
have  been  rejected,  it  is  liable  to  this  unanswerable 
objection,   so  long  as  space   is  assumed  to  have  an 
objective  existence,  viz.  that   the  human  inability  to 
conceive  such  a  possibility,  only  argues  (what  in  fact 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  123 

is  often  found  in  other  cases)  that  the  objective  exist- 
ence of  space — i.  e.  the  existence  of  space  in  itself,  and 
in  its  absolute  nature — is  far  larger  than  its  subjective 
existence — i.  e.  than  its  mode  of  existing  quoad  some 
particular  subject.  A  being  more  limited  than  man 
might  be  so  fi-amed  as  to  be  unable  to  conceive  curve 
lines ;  but  this  subjective  inaptitude  for  those  deter- 
minations of  space  would  not  affect  the  objective  reality 
of  curves,  or  even  their  subjective  reality  for  a  higher 
intelligence.  Thus,  on  the  hypothesis  of  an  objective 
existence  for  space,  we  should  be  thrown  upon  an 
ocean  of  possibilities,  without  a  test  for  saying  what 
was — what  was  not  possible.  But,  on  the  other 
hypothesis,  having  always  in  the  last  I'esort  what  is 
subjectively/  possible  or  impossible  [i.  e.  wliat  is  con- 
ceivable or  not  by  us,  what  can  or  cannot  be  drawn 
or  circumscribed  by  a  human  imagination),  we  have 
the  means  of  demonstration  in  our  power,  by  having 
the  ultimate  appeals  in  our  power  to  a  known  uniform 
test — viz.  a  known  human  faculty. 

This  is  no  trifling  matter,  and  therefore  no  trifling 
advantage  on  the  side  of  Kant  and  his  philosophy,  to 
all  who  are  acquainted  with  the  disagreeable  con- 
troversies of  late  years  among  French  geometricians 
of  the  first  rank,  and  sometimes  among  British  ones, 
on  the  question  of  mathematical  evidence.  Legendre 
and  Professor  Leslie  took  part  in  one  such  a  dispute ; 
and  the  temper  in  which  it  was  managed  was  worthy 
of  admiration,  as  contrasted  Avith  tlie  angry  con- 
troversies of  elder  days,  if,  indeed,  it  did  not  err  in 
an  opposite  spirit,  by  too  elaborate  and  too  calculating 
a  tone  of  reciprocal  flattery.  But  think  as  we  may  of 
the  discussion  in  this  respect,  most  assuredly  it  was 


124  DE    QUINCEY. 

painful  to  witness  so  infirm  a  philosophy  applied  to 
an  interest  so  mighty.  The  whole  aerial  superstruc- 
ture— the  heaven-aspiring  pyramid  of  geometrical 
synthesis — all  tottered  under  the  palsying  logic  of 
evidence,  to  which  these  celebrated  mathematicians 
appealed.  And  wherefore] — From  the  want  of  any 
philosophic  account  of  space,  to  which  they  might 
have  made  a  common  appeal,  and  which  might  have 
so  far  discharged  its  debt  to  truth,  as  at  least  to 
reconcile  its  theory  with  the  great  outstanding  phe- 
nomena in  the  most  absolute  of  sciences;  Geometi-y 
is  the  science  of  space  :  therefore,  in  any  philosopJiy  of 
space,  geometry  is  entitled  to  be  peculiarly  considered, 
and  used  as  a  court  of  appeal.  Geometry  has  these 
two  further  claims  to  distinction — that,  1st,  It  is  the 
most  perfect  of  the  sciences,  so  far  as  it  has  gone  • 
and,  2ndly,  That  it  has  gone  the  farthest.  A  philosophy 
of  space,  which  does  not  consider  and  does  not  recon- 
cile to  its  own  doctrines  the  facts  of  geometry,  which, 
in  the  two  points  of  beauty  and  of  vast  extent,  is 
more  like  a  work  of  nature  than  of  man,  is,  prima 
facie,  of  no  value.  A  philosophy  of  space  might  be 
false,  which  should  harmonise  with  the  facts  of 
geometry — it  must  be  false,  if  it  contradict  them. 
Of  Kant's  philosophy  it  is  a  capital  praise,  that  its 
very  opening  section — that  section  which  treats  the 
question  of  space,  not  only  quadrates  with  the  facts 
of  geometry,  but  also,  by  the  suhjective  character 
which  it  attributes  to  space,  is  the  very  first  philo- 
sophic scheme  which  explains  and  accounts  for  the 
cogency  of  geometrical  evidence. 

These  are  the  two   primary  merits  of  the  trans- 
cendental theory — 1st,  Its  harmony  with  mathematics, 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  125 

and  the  fact  of  having  first,  by  its  doctrine  of  space, 
applied  philosophy  to  the  nature  of  geometrical 
evidence  ;  2ndly,  That  it  has  filled  up,  by  means  of 
its  doctrine  of  categories,  the  great  hiatus  in  all 
schemes  of  the  human  understanding  from  Plato 
downwards.  All  the  rest,  with  a  i-eserve  as  to  the 
part  which  concerns  the  jyractical  reason  (or  will),  is 
of  more  questionable  value,  and  leads  to  manifold 
disputes.  But  I  contend,  that,  had  transcendentalism 
done  no  other  service  than  that  of  laying  a  foundation, 
sought  but  not  found  for  ages,  to  the  human  under- 
standing— namely,  by  showing  an  intelligible  genesis 
to  certain  large  and  indispensable  ideas — it  would 
have  claimed  the  gratitude  of  all  profound  inquiries. 
To  a  reader  still  disposed  to  undervalue  Kant's  service 
in  this  respect,  I  put  one  parting  question — Wherefore 
he  values  Locke  ?  What  has  he  done,  even  if  value  is 
allowed  in  full  to  his  pretensions  1  Has  the  reader 
asked  himself  that  ?  He  gave  a  negative  solution  at 
the  most.  He  told  his  reader  that  certain  disputed 
ideas  were  not  deduced  thus  and  thus.  Kant,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  given  him  at  the  least  a  positive 
solution.  He  teaches  him,  in  the  profoundest  revela- 
tion, by  a  discovery  in  the  most  absohite  sense  on 
record,  and  the  most  entirely  a  single  act — without 
parts,  or  contributions,  or  stages,  or  preparations  from 
other  quarters — that  these  long  disputed  ideas  could 
not  be  derived  from  the  experience  assigned  by  Locke, 
inasmuch  as  they  are  themselves  previous  conditions 
under  which  any  experience  at  all  is  possible  :  he  teaches 
him  that  these  ideas  are  not  mystically  originated, 
but  are,  in  fact,  but  another  phasis  of  tlie  functions, 
or,  forms  of  his  own  understanding ;  and,  finally,  he 


126  DE   QUINCEY. 

gives  consistency,  validity,  and  a  charter  of  authority, 
to  certain  modes  of  nexus,  without  which  the  sum 
total  of  human  experience  would  be  a  rope  of  sand. 

In  terminating  this  slight  account  of  the  Kantian 
philosophy,  I  may  mention  that  in  or  about  the  year 
1818-19,  Lord  Gi-enville,  when  visiting  the  lakes  of 
England,  observed  to  Professor  Wilson  that,  after  five 
years'  study  of  this  philosophy,  he  had  not  gathered 
from  it  one  clear  idea.  Wilberforce,  about  the  same 
time,  made  the  same  confession  to  another  friend  of 
my  own. 

It  is  not  usual  for  men  to  meet  with  their  capital 
disappointments  in  early  life,  at  least  not  in  youth. 
For,  as  to  disappointments  in  love,  which  are  doubt- 
less the  most  bitter  and  incapable  of  comfort,  though 
otherwise  likely  to  arise  in  youth,  they  are  in  this 
way  made  impossible  at  a  very  early  age,  that  no 
man  can  be  in  love  to  the  whole  extent  of  his  capacity, 
until  he  is  in  full  possession  of  all  his  faculties,  and 
with  the  sense  of  dignified  maturity.  A  perfect  love, 
such  as  is  necessary  to  the  anguish  of  a  perfect  disap- 
pointment, presumes  also  for  its  object  not  a  mere 
girl,  but  woman,  mature  both  in  person  and  character, 
and  womanly  dignity.  This  sort  of  disappointment, 
in  a  degree  which  could  carry  its  impression  through 
life,  I  cannot  therefore  suppose  occulting  earlier  than 
at  twenty-five  or  twenty- seven.  My  disappointment 
— the  profound  shock  with  which  I  was  repelled  from 
German  philosophy,  and  which  thenceforwards  tinged 
with  cynical  disgust  towards  man  in  certain  aspects, 
a  temper  which,  originally,  I  will  presume  to  consider 
the  most  benign  that  can  ever  have  been  created — 
occurred  when  I  was  yet  in  my  twentieth  year.     In 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  127 

a  poem  under  the  title  of  Saul,  written  many  years 
ago  by  Mr.  Sotheby,  and  perhaps  now  forgotten, 
having  never  been  popular,  there  occurs  a  passage  of 
some  pathos,  in  which  Saul  is  described  as  keeping 
amongst  the  splendid  equipments  of  a  royal  wardrobe, 
that  particular  pastoral  habit  which  he  had  worn  in 
his  days  of  earliest  manhood,  whilst  yet  humble  and 
undistinguished  by  honour,  but  also  yet  innocent  and 
happy.  There,  also,  with  the  same  care,  he  preserved 
his  shepherd's  crook,  which,  in  hands  of  youthful 
vigour,  had  been  connected  with  remembrances  of 
heroic  prowess.  These  memorials,  in  after  times  of 
trouble  or  perplexity,  when  the  burthen  of  royalty, 
its  cares,  or  its  feverish  temptations,  pointed  his 
thoughts  backwards,  for  a  moment's  relief,  to  scenes 
of  pastoral  gaiety  and  peace,  the  heart-wearied  prince 
would  sometimes  draw  from  their  repository,  and  in 
solitude  would  apostrophise  them  separately,  or  com- 
mune with  the  bitter-sweet  remembrances  which  they 
recalled.  In  something  of  the  same  spirit — but  with 
a  hatred  to  the  German  philosopher  such  as  men  are 
represented  as  feeling  towards  the  gloomy  enchanter, 
Zamiel  or  whomsoever,  by  whose  hateful  seductions 
they  have  been  placed  within  a  circle  of  malign  in- 
fluences— did  I  at  times  revert  to  Kant :  though  for 
me  his  power  had  been  of  the  very  opposite  kind ;  not 
an  enchanter's,  but  the  power  of  a  disenchanter — and 
a  disenchanter  the  most  profound.  As  often  as  I 
looked  into  his  works,  I  exclaimed  in  my  heart,  with 
the  widowed  queen  of  Carthage,  using  her  words  in 
an  altered  application — 

'  Quiiesivit  lucom — ingemicitque  repertd.' 
Had  the  transcendental  philosophy  corresponded  to 


128  DE    QUINCEY. 

my  expectations,  and  had  it  left  important  openings 
for  further  pursuit,  my  purpose  then  was,  to  have 
retired,  after  a  few  years  spent  in  Oxford,  to  the 
woodvS  of  Lower  Canada.  I  had  even  marked  out  the 
situation  for  a  cottage  and  a  considerable  library, 
about  seventeen  miles  fi-om  Quebec.  I  planned 
nothing  so  ambitious  as  a  scheme  of  Pantisocracy. 
My  object  was  simply  profound  solitude,  such  as 
cannot  now  be  had  in  any  part  of  Great  Britain — 
with  two  accessary  advantages,  also  peculiar  to 
countries  situated  in  the  circumstances  and  under  the 
climate  of  Canada :  viz.  the  exalting  presence  i^  an 
under-consciousness  of  forests  endless  and  silent,  the 
everlasting  sense  of  living  amongst  forms  so  ennobling 
and  impressive,  together  with  the  pleasure  attached 
to  natural  agencies,  such  as  frost,  more  powerfully 
manifested  than  in  English  latitudes,  and  for  a  much 
longer  period.  I  hope  there  is  nothing  fanciful  in  all 
this.  It  is  certain  that,  in  England,  and  in  all 
moderate  climates,  we  are  too  slightly  reminded  of 
nature  or  the  focus  of  nature.  Great  heats,  or  great 
colds  (and  in  Canada  there  are  both),  or  great  hurri- 
canes, as  in  the  West  Indian  latitudes,  recall  us 
continually  to  the  sense  of  a  povverfvil  presence,  in- 
vesting our  paths  on  every  side  ;  whereas,  in  England, 
it  is  possible  to  forget  that  we  live  amongst  greater 
agencies  than  those  of  men  and  human  institutions. 
Man,  in  fact,  '  too  much  man,'  as  Timon  complained 
most  reasonably  in  Athens,  was  then,  and  is  now,  our 
greatest  grievance  in  England.  Man  is  a  weed  every- 
where too  rank.  A  strange  place  must  that  be  with 
us,  from  which  the  sight  of  a  hundred  men  is  not 
before  us,  or  the  sound  of  a  thousand  about  us. 


THE    GERMAN    LANGUAGE.  129 

Nevertheless,  being  in  this  hotbed  of  man  inevit- 
ably for  some  years,  no  sooner  had  I  dismissed  my 
German  philosophy  than  I  relaxed  a  little  that  spirit 
of  German  abstraction  which  it  had  prompted  ;  and, 
though  never,  mixing  freely  with  society,  I  began  to 
look  a  little  abroad.  It  may  interest  the  reader, 
more  than  anything  else  which  I  can  i^ecord  of  this 
period,  to  recall  what  I  saw  within  the  ten  first  years 
of  the  century,  that  was  at  all  noticeable  or  worthy 
of  i-emembrance  amongst  the  literati,  the  philosophers, 
or  the  poets  of  the  time.  For,  though  I  am  not  in 
my  academic  period  from  1804  to  1808,  my  know- 
ledge of  literary  men — or  men  distinguished  in  some 
way  or  other,  either  by  their  opinions,  their  accom- 
plishments, or  their  position  and  the  accidents  of  their 
lives— began  from  the  first  year  of  the  century,  or, 
more  accurately,  from  the  year  1800;  which,  with 
some  difficulty  and  demurs,  and  with  some  arguments 
from  the  Laureate  Pye,  the  world  was  at  length 
persuaded  to  consider  the  last  year  of  the  eighteenth 
century.* 

*  Those  who  look  back  to  the  newspapers  of  1799  aud  ISOO, 
will  see  that  considerable  discussion  went  on  at  that  time  upon 
the  question,  whether  the  year  1800  was  entitled  to  open  the 
19th  century,  or  to  close  the  18th.  Mr.  Laureate  Pye  wrote  a 
poem,  with  a  long  and  argumentative  preface  on  the  point. 


VOL.   I. 


MORAL   EFFECTS   OF   REVOLUTIONS. 

{Mmj,  1822.) 

In  revolutionary  times,  as  when  a  civil  war  pi"evails 
in  a  country,  men  are  much  worse,  as  moral  beings, 
than  in  quiet  and  untroubled  states  of  peace.  So 
much  is  matter  of  history.  The  English,  under  Charles 
II.,  after  twenty  years'  agitation  and  civil  tumults ; 
the  Romans  after  Sylla  and  Marius,  and  the  still  more 
bloody  proscriptions  of  the  Triumvirates  ;  the  French, 
after  the  Wars  of  the  League  and  the  storms  of  the 
Revolution — were  much  changed  for  the  worse,  and 
exhibited  strange  relaxations  of  the  moral  principle. 
But  why  1  What  is  the  philosophy  of  the  case  ] 
Some  will  think  it  sufficiently  explained  by  the  neces- 
sity of  witnessing  so  much  bloodshed — the  hearths 
and  the  very  graves  of  their  fathers  polluted  by  the 
slaughter  of  their  countrymen — the  acharnement 
which  characterises  civil  contests  (as  always  the 
quarrels  of  friends  are  the  fiercest)— and  the  license 
of  wrong  which  is  bred  by  war  and  the  majesties  of 
armies.  Doubtless  this  is  part  of  the  explanation. 
But  is  this  all  1  Mr.  Coleridge  has  referred  to  this 
subject  in  The  Friend ;  but,  to  the  best  of  my  re- 
membrance, only  noticing  it  as  a  fact.  Fichte,  the 
celebrated  German  philosopher,  has  given  us  his  view 


MORAL    EFFECTS    OF    REVOLUTIONS.  1.31 

of  it  [Idea  of  War) ;  and  it  is  so  ingenious,  that 
it  deserves  mention.  It  is  this — '  Times  of  revo- 
lution force  men's  minds  inwards  :  hence  they  are  led 
amongst  other  things  to  meditate  on  morals  with 
reference  to  their  own  conduct.  But  to  subtilise 
too  much  upon  this  subject  must  always  be  ruinous 
to  morality,  with  all  understandings  that  are  not  very 
powerful,  i.  e.  with  the  majority,  because  it  terminates 
naturally  in  a  body  of  maxims  a  specious  and  covert 
self-interest.  Whereas,  when  men  meditate  less,  they 
are  apt  to  act  more  from  natural  feeling,  in  which 
the  natural  goodness  of  the  heart  often  interferes  to 
neutralise  or  even  to  overbalance  its  errors.' 


I  2 


PREFIGURATIONS  OF  REMOTE 
EVENTS* 

{April,  1823.) 

With  a  total  disbelief  in  all  the  vulgar  legends  of 
supernatural  agency,  and  that  upon  firmer  principles 
than  I  fear  most  people  could  assign  for  their  in- 
credulity, I  must  yet  believe  that  the  '  soul  of  the 
world '  has  in  some  instances  sent  forth  mysterious 
types  of  the  cardinal  events,  in  the  great  historic 
drama  of  our  planet.  One  has  been  noticed  by  a 
German  author,  and  it  is  placed  beyond  the  limits 
of  any  rational  scepticism ;  I  mean  the  coincidence 
between  the  augury  derived  from  the  flight  of  the 
twelve  vultures  as  types  of  the  duration  of  the  Roman 
empire,  i.  e.  Western  Empire,  for  twelve  centuries, 
and  the  actual  event.  This  augury  we  know  to 
have  been  recorded  many  centuries  before  its  con- 
summation ;  so  that  no  juggling  or  collusion  between 
the  prophets  and  the  witnesses  to  the  final  event  can 
be  suspected.  Some  others  might  be  added.  At 
present  I  shall  notice  a  coincidence  from  our  own 
history,  which,  though  not  so  important  as  to  come 

*  This  is  only  signed  Z  in  The  London  Magazine,  but  is 
clearly  labelled  'De  Quincey  '  in  Archdeacon  Hessey's 
marked  copy. — H. 


PREFIGURATIONS  OF  REMOTE  EVENTS.      133 

within  the  class  of  prefigurations  I  have  been  alluding 
to,  is  yet  curious  enough  to  deserve  mention.  The 
oak  of  Boscobel  and  its  history  are  matter  of  house- 
hold knowledge.  It  is  not  equally  well  known,  that 
in  a  medal,  struck  to  commemorate  the  installation 
(about  1636)  of  Charles  II.,  then  Prince  of  Wales,  as 
a  Knight  of  the  Garter,  amongst  the  decorations  was 
introduced  an  oak-tree  with  the  legend — ■'  Seris  factui-a 
nepotibus  umbram.' 


measurp:  of  value* 

{December,  1823.) 

To  the  reader. — This  article  was  written  and  printed  before  the 
author  heard  of  tlie  Lamented  death  of  Mr.  Ricardo. 

It  is  remai'kable  at  first  sight  that  Mr.  Malthus, 
to  whom  Political  Economy  is  so  much  indebted  in 
one  chapter  (viz.  the  chapter  of  Population),  should 
ill  every  other  chapter  have  stu,mbled  at  every  step. 
On  a  nearer  view,  however,  the  wonder  ceases.  His 
failures  and  his  erroi-s  have  arisen  in  all  cases  from 
the  illogical  structure  of  his  understanding ;  his 
success  was  in  a  path  which  required  no  logic.  What 
is  the  brief  abstract  of  his  success  ?  It  is  this  :  lie 
took  an  obvious  and  familiar  truth,  which  until  his 
time  had  been  a  barren  truism,  and  shoived  that  it 
teemed  with  consequences.  Out  of  this  position — lliat 
in  the  ground  which  limited  human  food  lay  tJte  ground 
vhich  limited  human  increase — united  with  this  other 
position — -That  there  is  a  2)eiyetual  nisus  in  the  jyrinciple 

*  Mr.  Johnt  Stuart  Mill  in  his  Principles  of  Political 
Economy,  Book  III  chaps,  i.  and  ii.,  makes  some  interesting  and 
appreciative  remarks  on  De  Quincey's  settlement  of  'the  phrase- 
ol'igy  of  value  ; '  also,  concerning  his  illustrations  of  '  demand 
and  supply,  in  their  relation  to  value.' 


MEASURE    OF    VALUE.  135 

of  po2)ulation  to  pass  that  limit,  he  unfolded  a  body  of 
most  important  corollaries.  I  have  remarked  in 
another  article  on  this  subject — how  entirely  these 
corollaries  had  escaped  all  Mr.  Malthvxs's*  predecessors 
in  the  same  track.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  in- 
stance of  this,  which  I  could  have  alleged,  is  that 
of  the  celebrated  French  wcrk — L'Ami  des  Uommes, 
ou  Traite  de  la  Population  (written  about  the  middle 
of  the  last  century),  which  sets  out  deliberately 
from  this  principle,  expressed  almost  in  the  very 
words  of  Mr.  Malthus, — '  Qv^  la  mesure  de  la  Subsist- 
aiice  est  celle  de  la  Pojndation  ; ' — beats  the  bushes 
in  every  direction  about  it ;  and  yet  (with  the  excep- 
tion  of  one  corollary  on  the  supposed  depopulating 

*  In  a  slight  article  on  Mr.  Malthus,  lately  publishetl,  I 
omitted  to  take  any  notice  of  the  recent  controversy  between 
this  gentleman — Mr.  Godwin — and  Mr.  Booth  ;  my  reason  for 
which  was — that  I  have  not  yet  found  time  to  read  it.  But,  if 
Mr.  Lowe  has  rightly  represented  this  principle  of  Mr.  Booth's 
argument  in  his  late  work  on  the  Statistics  of  England,  it  is  a 
most  erroneous  one  :  for  Mr.  Booth  is  there  described  as  alleging 
against  Mr.  Malthus  that,  in  his  view  of  the  tendencies  of  the 
principle  of  population,  he  has  relied  too  much  on  the  case  of 
the  United  States — which  Mr.  Bootli  will  have  to  be  an  extreme 
case,  and  not  according  to  the  general  rule.  But  of  what  con- 
se(|uence  is  this  to  Mr.  Malthus  ?  And  how  is  he  interested  in 
relying  on  the  case  of  America  rather  than  that  of  the  oldest 
European  country  ?  Because  he  assumes  a  perpetual  nisus  in 
the  principle  of  human  increase  to  pass  a  certain  limit,  he  does 
not  therefore  hold  that  this  limit  ever  is  passed  either  in  the 
new  countries  or  in  old  (or  only  for  a  moment,  and  inevitably 
to  be  thrown  back  within  it).  Let  this  limit  be  placed  where 
it  may,  it  can  no  more  be  passed  in  America  than  in  Europe  ; 
and  America  is  not  at  all  more  favourable  to  Mr.  Malthus's 
theory  than  Europe.  Births,  it  must  be  remembered,  are  more 
in  excess  in  Europe  than  in  America  :  though  they  do  not  make 
.so  much  positive  addition  to  the  population. 


136  DE    QUI^X'EY. 

tendency  of  war  and  famine)  deduces  from  it  none 
but  erroneous  and  Auti-Maltliusian  doctrines.  That 
from  a  truth  apparently  so  ban-en  any  corollaries 
were  deducible — was  reserved  for  Mr.  Maltbus  to 
show.  As  corollaries,  it  may  be  supposed  that  they 
imply  a  logical  act  of  the  understanding.  In  some 
small  degree,  no  doubt ;  but  no  more  than  necessarily 
accompanies  every  exercise  of  reason.  Though  infer- 
ences, they  are  not  remote  inferences,  but  immediate 
and  proximate ;  and  not  dependent  upon  each  other, 
but  collateral.  Not  logic  but  a  judicious  choice  of 
his  ground  placed  Mr.  Mai  thus  at  once  in  a  station 
from  which  he  commanded  the  whole  truth  at  a 
glance — with  a  lucky  dispensation  from  all  necessity 
of  continuous  logical  processes.  But  such  a  dispens- 
ation is  a  pi'ivilege  indulged  to  few  other  parts  of 
Political  Economy,  and  least  of  all  to  that  which  is 
the  foundation  of  all  Political  Economy,  viz.  the 
doctrine  of  value.  Having  therefore  repeatedly 
chosen  to  tamper  with  this  difficult  subject,  Mr. 
Malthus  has  just  made  so  many  exposures  of  his  in- 
tellectual infirmities — which,  but  for  this  volunteer 
display,  Ave  might  never  have  known.  Of  all  the  men 
of  talents,  whose  writings  I  have  read  up  to  this 
hour,  Mr.  Malthus  has  the  most  perplexed  under- 
standing. He  is  not  only  confused  himself,  but  is 
the  cause  that  confusion  is  in  other  men.  Logical 
perplexity  is  shockingly  contagious :  and  he,  who 
takes  Mr.  Malthus  for  his  guide  through  any  tangled 
question,  ought  to  be  able  to  box  the  compass  very 
well ;  or  before  he  has  read  ten  pages  he  will  find 
himself  (as  the  Westmorland  guides  express  it) 
'  maffled,' — and    disposed    to    sit    down    and    fall    a 


MEASURE    OF    VALUE.  137 

crying  with  his  guide  at  the  sad  bewilderment  into 
which  they  have  both  strayed.  It  tends  much  to 
heighten  the  sense  of  Mr.  Malthus's  helplessness  in 
this  particular  point — that  of  late  years  he  has  given 
himself  the  air  too  much  of  teasing  Mr.  Ricardo,  one 
of  the  '  ugliest  customers'  in  point  of  logic  that  ever 
entered  the  ring.  Mr.  Ricardo  is  a  most  'dangerous' 
man  ;  and  Mr.  Malthus  would  do  well  not  to  meildle 
with  so  '  vicious '  a  subject,  whose  arm  (like  Neate's) 
gives  a  blow  like  the  kick  of  a  horse.  He  has 
hitherto  contented  himself  very  good-naturedly  with 
gently  layiug  Mr.  Malthus  on  his  back ;  but,  if  he 
should  once  turn  round  with  a  serious  determination 
to  '  take  the  conceit '  out  of  him,  Mr.  Malthus  would 
assuredly  be  '  put  into  chancery,'  and  suffer  a 
'  punishment '  that  must  distress  his  friends. — 
Amongst  those  whom  Mr.  Malthus  has  perplexed  by 
his  logic,  I  am  not  one  :  in  matter  of  logic,  I  hold 
myself  impeccable  ;  and,  to  say  nothing  of  my  sober 
days,  I  defy  the  devil  and  all  the  powers  of  darkness 
to  get  any  advantage  over  me,  even  on  those  days 
when  I  am  drunk,  in  relation  to  '  Barbara,  Celarent, 
Darii,  or  Ferio.' 

'  Avoid,  old  Satanas  !  '  I  exclaim,  if  any  man 
attempts  to  fling  dust  in  my  eyes  by  false  syllogism, 
or  any  mode  of  dialectic  sophism.  And  in  relation 
to  this  particular  subject  of  value,  I  flatter  myself 
that  in  a  paper  expressly  applied  to  tlie  exposure  of 
Mr.  Malthus's  blunders  in  his  Political  Economy,  I 
have  made  it  impossible  for  JNIr.  Malthus,  even 
though  he  should  take  to  his  assistance  seven  worse 
logicians  than  himself,  to  put  down  my  light  with 
their  darkness.     Meantime,  as   a  labour   of  shorter 


138  DE    QUINCEY. 

compass,  I  will  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the 
following  blunder,  in  a  later  work  of  Mr.  Malthus's — 
viz,  a  pamphlet  of  eighty  pages,  entitled,  The 
Measure  of  Value,  stated  and  applied  (published  in 
the  spring  of  the  present  year).  The  question  pro- 
posed in  this  work  is  the  same  as  that  already  dis- 
cussed in  his  Political  Economy — viz.  What  is  the 
measure  of  value  ?  But  the  answer  to  it  is  different  : 
in  the  Political  Economy,  the  measure  of  value  was 
determined  to  be  a  mean  between  corn  and  labour ; 
in  this  pamphlet,  Mr.  Malthus  retracts  that  opinion, 
and  (finally,  let  us  hope)  settles  it  to  his  own  satis- 
faction that  the  true  measux-e  is  labour ;  not  the 
quantity  of  labour,  observe,  which  will  produce  X, 
but  the  quantity  which  X  Avill  command.  Upon 
these  two  answers,  and  the  delusions  which  lie  at 
their  i-oot,  I  shall  here  forbear  to  comment  ;  because 
I  am  now  chasing  Mr.  Malthus's  logical  blunders  ; 
and  these  delusions  are  not  so  much  logical  as 
economic :  what  I  now  wish  the  reader  to  attend  to — 
is  the  blunder  involved  in  the  question  itself  ;  because 
that  blunder  is  not  economic,  but  logical.  The 
question  is — what  is  the  measure  of  value  ?  I  say 
then  that  the  phrase  — '  measure  of  value '  is  an 
equivocal  phrase  ;  and,  in  Mr.  Malthus's  use  of  it, 
means  indifferently  that  which  determines  value,  in 
relation  to  the  jn'incijnuni  essendi,  and  that  which 
determines  value,  in  relation  to  the  princijyium  cognos- 
candi.  Here,  perhaps,  the  reader  will  exclaim — 
*  Avoid,  Satanas  !  '  to  me,  falsely  supposing  that  I 
have  some  design  upon  his  eyes,  and  wish  to  blind 
them  with  leai-ned  dust.  But,  if  he  thinks  that,  he 
is  in  the  wrong  box  :  I  must  and  will  express  scho- 


MEASURE    OF    VALUE.  139 

lastic  phrases  ;  but,  having  once  done  this,  I  am  then 
ready  to  descend  into  the  arena  with  no  other 
weapons  than  plain  English  can  furnish.  Let  us 
therefore  translate  '  measure  of  value  '  into  '  that  which 
determines  value : '  and,  in  this  shape,  we  shall  detect 
the  ambiguity  of  which  I  complain.  For  I  say,  that 
the  word  determines  may  be  taken  subjectively  for 
what  determines  X  in  relation  to  our  knowledge,  or 
objectively  for  what  determines  X  in  relation  to 
itself.  Thus,  if  I  were  to  ask — '  What  determined 
the  length  of  the  racecourse  % '  and  the  answer 
were — *  The  convenience  of  the  spectators  who  could 
not  have  seen  the  horses  at  a  greater  distance,'  or 
'The  choice  of  the  subscribers,'  then  it  is  plain  that 
by  the  word  '  determined,'  I  was  understood  to  mean 
'  determined  objectively,'  i.  e.  in  relation  to  the  exist- 
ence of  the  object ;  in  other  woi'ds,  what  caused  the 
racecourse    to    be  this  length    rather    than    another 

length  :     but,    if    the    answer    were '  An    actual 

admeasurement,'  it  would  then  be  plain  that  by  the 
word  '  determined,'  I  had  been  understood  to  mean 
*  determined  subjectively,'  i.  e.  in  relation  to  our 
knowledge  ; — what  ascertained  it? — Now,  in  the 
objective  sense  of  the  phrase,  '  determiner  of  value,' 
the  measure  of  value  will  mean  the  ground,  of  value  : 
in  the  siibjoctive  sense,  it  will  mean  the  criterion  of 
value.  Mr.  iMalthns  will  allege  that  he  is  at  liberty 
to  use  it  in  which  sense  he  pleases.  Grant  that  he  is, 
but  not  therefore  in  both.  Has  he  then  used  it  in 
both  ]  He  will,  perhaps,  deny  that  he  has,  and  will 
contend  that  he  has  used  it  in  the  latter  sense  as 
equivalent  to  the  ascertainer  or  criterion  of  valve. 
I    answer — -No :    for,    omitting    a    more    particular 


l-iO  DE    QUINOEY. 

examination  of  his  use  in  this  place,  I  say  that  his  use 
of  any  word  is  peremptorily  and  in  defiance  of  his 
private  explanation  to  be  extorted  from  the  use  of 
the  corresponding  term  in  him  whom  he  is  opposing. 
Now  he  is  opposing  Mr.  Ricardo  :  his  labour  which  X 
commands — -is  opposed  to  Mr.  Ricardo's  quantity  of 
laboiir  vjhich  will  produce  X.  Call  the  first  A,  the 
last  B.  Now,  in  making  B  the  determiner  of  value, 
INTr.  Ricardo  means  that  B  is  the  ground  of  value  : 
i.  e.  that  B  is  the  answer  to  the  question — what 
makes  this  hat  of  more  value  than  this  pair  of  shoes  1 
But,  if  Mr.  Malthus  means  by  A  the  same  thing, 
then  by  his  own  confession  he  has  used  the  term 
measure  of  value  in  two  senses  :  on  the  other  hand, 
if  he  does  not  mean  the  same  thing,  but  simply  the 
criterion  of  value,  then  he  has  not  used  the  word  in 
any  sense  which  opposes  him  to  Mr.  Ricardo.  And 
yet  he  advances  the  whole  on  that  footing.  On 
either  ground,  therefore,  he  is  guilty  of  a  logical 
error,  which  implies  that,  so  far  from  answering  his 
own  question,  he  did  not  know  what  his  own  question 
was. 


LETTER  IN  REPLY  TO  HAZLTTT  CON- 
CERNING THE  MALTHUSIAN  DOC- 
TRINE  OF   POPULATION. 

THE    lion's    head.* 

To  tJie  Editor  of  the  London  Magazine. 

Westmoreland,  November  4,  1823. 

My  dear  Sir, — This  morning  I  received  your  parcel, 
containing  amongst  other  inclosui-es,  the  two  last 
numbers  of  your  journal.  In  the  first  of  these  is 
pi'iuted  a  little  paper  of  mine  on  Mr.  Malthus ;  and 
in  the  second  I  observe  a  letter  from  Mr.  Hazlitt — 
alleging  two  passages  from  the  403rd  and  421st  pages 
of  his  Political  Essays  as  substantially  anticipating 
all  that  I  had  said.  I  believe  that  he  has  anticipated 
me  :  in  the  passage  relating  to  the  geometric  and 
arithmetic  ratios,  it  is  clear  that  he  has  :  in  the  other 
passage,  which  objects  to  Mr.  Malthus's  use  of  the 
term  inrf action,  that  he  has  represented  it  under  con. 
tradictory  predicates,  it  is  not  equally  clear ;  for  I  do 
not  find  my  own  meaning  so  rigorously  expressed  as 

*  This  was  the  heading  under  which  correspondence  appeared 
in  The  London  Magazine  at  that  date. — H. 


142  DE    QUINCEY. 

to  exclude  another  *  interpretation  even  now  when  I 
know  what  to  look  for  ;  and,  without  knowing  what  to 

*  What  other  interpretation  ?  An  interpretation  which  makes 
Mr.  Hazlitt's  argument  coincide  with  one  fi'eqnently  urged 
against  Mr.  Malthus — viz.  '  that  in  fact  he  himself  relies  practi- 
cally upon  moral  restraint  as  one  great  check  to  Population, 
though  denying  that  any  great  revolution  in  the  moral  nature 
of  man  is  practicable.'  But  so  long  as  Mr.  Malthus  means,  by 
a  great  revolution,  a  revolution  in  the  sense  which  he  imputes  to 
Mr.  Godwin — to  Condorcet,  &c.  viz.  a  revolution  amounting  to 
absolute  perfection,  so  long  there  is  no  logical  error  in  all  this  : 
Mr.  Maltlius  may  consistently  rely  upon  moral  restraint  for 
getting  rid,  suppose,  of  ninety  cases  out  of  every  hundred  which 
at  present  tend  to  produce  an  excessive  population,  and  yet 
maintain  that  even  this  tenth  of  the  former  excess  would  be 
sufficient,  at  a  certain  stage  of  population,  to  reproduce  famines, 
&c.,  i.  e.  to  reproduce  as  much  misery  and  vice  as  had  been  got 
rid  of.  Here  there  is  an  absolute  increase  of  moral  restraint, 
but  still  insufficient  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  misery,  &c. 
For,  as  soon  as  the  maximum  of  population  is  attained,  even 
one  single  birth  in  excess  {i.  e.  which  does  more  than  replace 
the  existing  numbers) — a  fortiori,  then,  one-tenth  of  the  present 
excess  (though  implying  that  the  other  nine-tenths  had  been 
got  rid  of  by  moral  restraint)  would  yet  be  sufficient  to  prevent 
the  attainment  of  a  state  of  perfection.  And,  if  Mr.  Malthus 
had  so  shaped  his  argument,  whether  wrong  or  right — he  would 
not  have  offended  in  point  of  logic :  his  logical  error  lies  in  sup- 
posing a  state  of  perfection  already  existing  and  yet  as  brought 
to  nothing  by  this  excess  of  births  :  whei-eas  it  is  clear  that  such 
an  excess  may  operate  to  prevent,  but  cannot  operate  to  destroy 
a  state  of  perfection  ;  because  in  such  a  state  no  excess  could 
ever  arise  ;  for,  though  an  excess  may  co-exist  with  a  vast 
increase  of  moral  I'cstraint,  it  cannot  co-exist  with  entire  and 
perfect  moral  restraint ;  and  nothing  less  than  that  is  involved 
in  the  term  'perfection.'  A  perfect  state,  which  allows  the 
possibility  of  the  excess  here  spoken  of,  is  already  an  imperfect 
state.  Now,  if  Mr.  Hazlitt  says  that  this  is  exactly  what  he 
means,  I  answer  that  I  believe  it  is  ;  because  I  can  in  no  other 
way  explain  his  sixth  sentence — from  the  words  '  but  it  is  shift- 
ing the  question '  to  the  end  of  that  sentence.     Yet  again  the 


LETTER    IN    REPLY    TO    IIAZLITT.  143 

look  for,  I  should  cei-tainly  not  have  found  it :  on  the 
whole,  however,  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  Mr. 
Ilazlitt's  meaning  is  the  same  as  my  own.  So  much 
for  the  matter  of  Mr.  Hazlitt's  communication  :  as  to 
the  manner,  I  am  sorry  that  it  is  liable  to  a  construction 
which  perhaps  was  not  intended.  Mr.  Hazlitt  says — 
'  I  do  not  wish  to  bring  any  charge  of  plagiarism  in  this 
case  ; '  words  which  are  better  fitted  to  express  his  own 
forbearance,  than  to  exonerate  me  from  the  dishonour 
of  such  an  act.  But  I  am  unwilling  to  suppose  that  Mr. 
Hazlitt  has  designedly  given  this  negative  form  to  his 
words.  He  says  also—'  as  I  have  been  a  good  deal 
abused  for  my  scepticism  on  that  subject,  I  do  not  feel 
quite  disposed  that  any  one  else  should  run  away  with 
the  credit  of  it.'  Here  again  I  cannot  allow  myself  to 
think  that  Mr.  Hazlitt  meant  deliberately  to  bring 
me  before  the  reader's  mind  under  the  odious  image 
of  a  person  who  was  *  running  away '  with  the  credit 

seventh  sentence  (the  last)  is  so  expressed  as  to  be  unintelligible 
to  me.  And  all  that  precedes  the  sixth  sentence,  though  very 
intelligible,  yet  seems  the  precise  objection  which  I  have  stated 
above,  and  which  I  thick  untenable.  Nay,  it  is  still  less 
tenable  in  Mr.  Hazlitt's  way  of  putting  it  than  as  usually  put  : 
for  to  represent  Mr.  Malthus  as  saying  that,  '  if  reason  should 
ever  get  the  mastery  over  all  our  actions,  we  shall  then  be 
governed  entirely  by  our  physical  appetites '  (wliich  are  Mr. 
Hazlitt's  words),  would  be  objected  to  even  by  an  opponent  of 
Mr.  Malthus :  why  '  entirely  ? '  why  more  than  we  are  at 
present  ]  The  utmost  amount  of  the  objection  is  this  : — That, 
relying  so  much  upon  moral  restraint  practically,  Mr.  ^Malthus 
was  bound  to  have  allowed  it  more  weight  speculatively,  but  it 
is  unreasonable  to  say  that  in  his  ideal  case  of  perfection  Mr. 
Malthus  has  allowed  no  weight  at  all  to  moral  restraint:  even 
he,  who  supposes  an  increased  force  to  be  inconsistent  with  Mr. 
Malthus's  theory,  has  no  reason  to  insist  upon  his  meaning  a 
diminished  force. 


144  DE    QUINCEY. 

of  another.  As  to  '  credit,'  Mr.  Hazlitt  must  permit 
me  to  smile  when  I  read  that  word  used  in  that 
sense :  I  can  assure  him  that  not  any  abstract  con- 
sideration of  credit,  but  the  abstract  idea  of  a  creditor 
(often  putting  on  a  concrete  shape,  and  sometimes 
the  odious  concrete  of  a  dun)  has  for  some  time  past 
been  the  animating  principle  of  my  labours.  Credit 
therefore,  except  in  the  sense  of  twelve  months'  credit 
where  now  alas  !  I  have  only  six,  is  no  object  of  my 
search  :  in  fact  I  abhor  it :  for  to  be  a  '  noted '  man 
is  the  next  bad  thing  to  being  a  '  protested '  man. 
Seriously,  however,  I  sent  you  this  as  the  first  of  four 
notes  which  I  had  wi-itten  on  the  logical  blunders  of 
Mr.  Malthus  (the  other  three  being  taken  not  from 
his  Essay  on  Population,  but  from  works  more  ex- 
pressly within  the  field  of  Political  Economy) :  not 
having  met  with  it  elsewhere,  I  supposed  it  my  own 
and  sent  it  to  complete  the  series  :  but  the  very  first 
sentence,  which  parodies  the  words  of  Chancellor 
Oxenstiern — ('  Go  and  see — how  little  logic  is  required,' 
&c.),  sufficiently  shows  that,  so  far  from  arrogating 
any  great  merit  to  myself  for  this  discovery,  I  thought 
it  next  to  miraculous  that  it  should  have  escaped  any 
previous  reviewer  of  Mr.  Malthus. — I  must  doubt,  by 
the  way,  whether  Mr.  Hazlitt  has  been  '  a  good  deal 
abused '  for  these  specific  arguments  against  Mr. 
Malthus ;  and  my  reason  for  doubting  is  this  :  about 
ten  or  twelve  years  ago,  happening  to  be  on  a  visit  to 
Mr.  Southey,  I  remember  to  have  met  with  a  work 
of  Mr.  Hazlitt' s  on  this  subject — not  that  which  he 
quotes,  but  another  {Reply  to  Malthus)  which  he  refers 
to  as  containing  the  same  opinions  (either  totidem 
verbis,  or  in  substance).     In  Mr.  Southey's  library, 


LETTER    IN    REPLY    TO    IIAZLITT.  145 

and  in  competition  with  Mr.  Southey's  conversation, 
a  man  may  be  pardoned  for  not  studying  any  one 
book  exclusively  :  consequently,  though  I  read  a  good 
deal  of  Mr.  Hazlitt's  Reply,  I  read  it  cursorily : 
but,  in  all  that  I  did  read,  I  remember  that  the 
ai'gumeuts  wei'e  very  different  from  those  which  he 
now  alleges ;  indeed  it  must  be  evident  that  the  two 
logical  objections  in  question  are  by  no  means  fitted 
to  fill  an  octavo  volume.  My  inference  therefore  is — 
that  any  '  abuse,'  which  Mr.  Hazlitt  may  have  met 
with,  must  have  been  directed  to  something  else  in 
his  Reply  ;  and  in  fact  it  has  happened  to  myself  ou 
several  occasions  to  hear  this  book  of  Mr.  Hazlitt's 
treated  as  unworthy  of  his  talents ;  but  never  on 
account  of  the  two  arguments  which  he  now  claims. 
I  would  not  be  supposed,  in  saying  this,  to  insinuate 
any  doubt  that  these  arguments  are  really  to  be  found 
in  the  Rt'ply ;  but  simply  to  suggest  that  they  do 
not  come  forward  prominently  or  constitute  the 
main  argument  of  that  book :  and  consequently, 
instead  of  being  opposed,  have  been  overlooked  by 
those  who  have  opposed  him  as  much  as  they  wex'e 
by  myself. 

Finally,  Mr.  Hazlitt  calls  the  coincidence  of  my 
objections  with  his  own  '  striking  : '  and  thus  (though 
unintentionally,  I  dare  say)  throws  the  reader's  at- 
tention upon  it  as  a  very  surprising  case.  Now  in 
this  there  is  a  misconception  which,  apart  fi'om  any 
personal  question  between  Mr.  Hazlitt  and  myself,  is 
worth  a  few  words  on  its  own  account  for  the  sake  of 
placing  it  in  a  proper  light.  I  afiirm  then  that, 
considering  its  nature,  the  coincidence  is  not  a  striking 
one,  if    by  '  striking '  be    meant    surprising :    and  I 

VOL.   I.  K 


1-46  DE    QUINCEY. 

affirm  also  that  it  would  not  have  been  the  more 
striking  if,  instead  of  two,  it  had  extended  to  two 
hundred  similar  cases.  Supposing  that  a  thousand 
persons  were  required  severally  to  propose  a  riddle, 
no  conditions  or  limitations  being  expressed  as  to  the 
terms  of  the  riddle,  it  would  be  surprising  if  any  two 
in  the  whole  thousand  should  agree :  suppose  again 
that  the  same  thousand  persons  were  required  to 
solve  a  riddle,  it  would  now  be  surprising  if  any  two 
in  the  whole  thousand  should  differ.  Why]  Because, 
in  the  first  case,  the  act  of  the  mind  is  an  act  of 
synthesis ;  and  there  we  may  readily  conceive  a 
thousand  different  roads  for  any  one  mind ;  but,  in 
the  second  case,  it  is  an  analytic  act ;  and  there  we 
cannot  conceive  of  more  than  one  road  for  a  thousand 
minds.  In  the  case  between  Mr.  Hazlitt  and  myself 
there  was  a  double  ground  of  coincidence  for  any 
possible  number  of  writei's :  first  the  object  was 
given  ;  i.  e.  we  were  not  left  to  an  unlimited  choice  of 
the  propositions  we  were  to  attack ;  but  Mr.  Malthus 
had  himself,  by  insisting  on  two  in  particular  (how- 
ever erroneously)  as  the  capital  propositions  of  his 
system,  determined  our  attention  to  these  two  as  the 
assailable  points :  secondly,  not  only  was  the  object 
given — i.  e.  not  only  was  it  predetermined  for  us 
where  *  the  error  must  lie,  if  there  were  an  error ; 

*  '  Where  the  error  must  lie ' — i.  e.  to  furnish  a  sufficient 
answer  ad  Iwmiyicin :  otherwise  it  will  be  seen  that  I  do  not 
regard  either  of  the  two  propositions  as  essential  to  Mr.  Malthus's 
theory  :  and  therefore  to  overthrow  those  propositions  is  not  to 
answer  that  theory.  But  still,  if  an  author  will  insist  on 
representing  something  as  essential  to  his  theory  which  is  not 
so,  and  challenges  opposition  to  it, — it  is  allowable  to  meet  him 
on  his  own  ground. 


LETTER    IN    REPLY    TO    HAZLITT.  147 

Init  the  nature  of  that  error,  which  happened  to  be 
logical,  predetermined  for  us  the  nature  of  the  so- 
lution. Errors  which  are  such  materialiter,  i.  e.  which 
offend  against  our  hiowing,  may  admit  of  many 
answers — involving  more  and  less  of  truth.  But 
errors,  which  are  such  logically,  i.  e.  which  offend 
against  the  form  (or  internal  law)  of  our  thinking, 
admit  of  only  one  answer.  Except  by  failing  of  any 
answer  at  all,  Mr.  Hazlitt  and  I  could  not  hut  co- 
incide :  as  long  as  we  had  the  same  propositions  to 
examine  (which  were  not  of  our  owu  choice,  but 
pointed  out  to  us  ah  extra),  and  as  long  as  we  under- 
stood those  propositions  in  the  same  sense,  no  variety 
was  possible  except  in  the  expression  and  manner  of 
our  answers ;  and  to  that  extent  a  variety  exists. 
Any  other  must  have  arisen  from  our  understanding 
that  proposition  in  a  different  sense. 

My  answer  to  Mr.  Hazlitt  therefore  is — that  in 
substance  I  think  his  claim  valid ;  and  though  it  is 
most  true  that  I  was  not  aware  of  any  claim  prior  to 
my  own,  I  now  formally  forego  any  claim  on  my  own 
part  to  the  credit  of  whatsoever  kind  which  shall  ever 
arise  from  the  two  objections  to  Mr.  Malthus's  logic 
in  his  Essay  on  Population.  In  saying  this,  however, 
and  acknowleilging  therefore  a  coincidence  with  Mr. 
Hazlitt  in  those  two  arguments,  I  must  be  understood 
to  mean  a  coincidence  only  in  what  really  belongs  to 
them ;  meantime  Mr.  Hazlitt  has  used  two  expres- 
sions in  his  letter  to  yourself  which  seem  to  connect 
with  those  propositions  other  opinions  from  which  I 
dissent :  that  I  may  not  thei'efore  be  supposed  to 
extend  my  ac(|uiescence  in  Mr.  Hazlitt's  views  to 
these  points,  I  add  two  .short  notes  upon  them  :  which 

K   2 


148  DE   QUINCEY. 

however  I  have  detached  from  this  letter — as  forming 
no  proper  part  of  its  business. — Believe  me,  my  dear 
Sir,  your  faithful  humble  servant.  X.  Y.  Z. 

1.  Mr.  Hazlitt  represents  Mr.  Malthus's  error  in 

regard   to    the    different    ratios  of    progression  as  a 

mathematical   error ;    but   the   other    error    he    calls 

logical.    This  may  seem  to  lead  to  nothing  important : 

it  is  however  not  for  any  purpose  of  verbal  cavil  that 

I   object  to  this  distinction,  and  contend  that   both 

errors    are    logical.     For   a    little   consideration  will 

convince  the    reader    that    he,  who   thinks  the   first 

error    mathematical,   will    inevitably   miss    the   true 

point  where  the  error  of  Mr.  Malthus  arises ;  and  the 

consequence    of    that    will    be — that    he    will    never 

understand  the  Malthusians,  nor  ever  make  himself 

understood  by  them.     Mr.  Hazlitt  says,  '  a  bushel  of 

wheat  will  sow  a  whole  field  :    the  produce  of  that 

will   sow  twenty  fields.'     Yes  :    but  this  is  not   the 

point  which  Mr.  Malthus  denies  :  this  he  will  willingly 

grant :   neither  will  he  deny  that  such  a  progression 

goes  on  by  geometrical  ratios.     If  he  did,  then  it  is 

true  that    his    error  would    be  a  mathematical  one. 

But  all    this  he  will  concede.     Where  then  lies  his 

error?     Simply  in  this — that  he  assumes  (I  do  not 

mean  in  words,  but  it  is  manifestly  latent  in  all  that 

he  says)  that  the  wheat  shall  be  continually  resown 

on  the  same  area  of  land  :  he  will  not  allow  of  Mr. 

Hazlitt's  '  twenty  fields  : '   keep  to  your  original  field, 

he  will  say.      In  this  lies  his  error  :  and  the  nature  of 

that  error  is — that  he  insists  upon  shaping  the  case 

for  the  wheat  in  a  way  which  makes  it  no  fair  analogy 

to  the  case  which  he  has  shaped  for  man.     That  it  is 


LETTER    IN    REPLY    TO    IIAZLITT.  149 

unfair  is  evident :  foi*  Mr.  Malthus  does  not  mean  to 
contend  that  Ids  men  will  go  on  by  geometrical  pro- 
gression ;  or  even  by  arithmetical,  upon  the  same 
quantity  of  food  :  no  !  he  will  himself  say  the  positive 
principle  of  increase  must  concur  with  the  same  sort 
of  increase  in  the  external  (negative)  condition,  which 
is  food.  Upon  what  sort  of  logic  therefore  does  he 
demand  that  his  wheat  shall  be  thrown  upon  the 
naked  power  of  its  positive  principle,  not  concurring 
with  the  same  sort  of  increase  in  the  negative  con- 
dition, which  in  this  case  is  land  ?  It  is  true  that  at 
length  we  shall  come  to  the  end  of  the  land,  because 
that  is  limited  :  but  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
race  between  man  and  his  food,  so  long  as  the  race  is 
possible.  The  race  is  imagined  for  the  sake  of  trying 
their  several  powers  :  and  the  terms  of  the  match 
must  be  made  equal.  But  there  is  no  equality  in  the 
terms  as  they  are  supposed  by  Mr.  Malthus.  The 
amount  therefore  is — that  the  case  which  Mr.  Malthus 
everywhere  supposes  and  reasons  upon,  is  a  case  of 
false  analogy :  that  is,  it  is  a  logical  error.  But, 
setting  aside  the  unfairness  of  the  case,  Mr.  Malthus 
is  perfectly  right  in  his  mathematics.  If  it  wei-e  fair 
to  demand  that  the  wheat  should  be  constantly 
confined  to  the  same  space  of  land,  it  is  undeniable 
that  it  could  never  yield  a  pioduce  advancing  by  a 
geometrical  progression,  but  at  the  utmost  by  a  veiy 
slow  arithmetical  progression.  Consequently,  taking 
the  case  as  Mr.  Malthus  puts  it,  he  is  right  in  calling 
it  a  case  of  arithmetical  progression  :  and  his  error  is 
in  putting  that  case  as  a  logical  counterpart  to  his 
other  case. 

2  Mr.    Hazlitt   says— '  This,    Mr.    Editor,   is   the 


150  DE    QUINCEY. 

writer  whom  "  our  full  senate  call  all-in-all  sufficient."  ' 
— And  why  not  1  I  ask.  Mr.  Hazlitt's  inference  is 
— that,  because  two  propositions  in  Mr.  Malth vis's 
Essay  are  overthrown,  and  because  these  two  are 
propositions  to  which  Mr.  Malthus  ascribes  a  false 
importance,  in  relation  to  his  theory,  therefore  that 
theory  is  overthi-own.  But,  if  an  architect,  under 
some  fancied  weakness  of  a  bridge  which  is  really 
strong  and  self-supported,  chooses  to  apply  needless 
props,  I  shall  not  injure  the  bridge  by  showing  these 
to  be  rotten  props  and  knocking  them  away.  What 
is  the  real  strength  and  the  real  use  of  Mr.  Malthus's 
theory  of  population,  cannot  well  be  shown,  except 
in  treating  of  Political  Economy.  But  as  to  the 
influence  of  his  logical  errors  upon  that  theory,  I 
contend  that  it  is  none  at  all.  It  is  one  error  to 
affirm  a  different  law  of  increase  for  man  and  for 
his  food :  it  is  a  second  error  to  affirm  of  a  perfect 
state  an  attribute  of  imperfection :  but  in  my  judg- 
ment it  is  a  third  error,  as  great  as  either  of  the 
others,  to  suppose  that  these  two  errors  can  at  all 
affect  the  Malthusian  doctrine  of  Population.  Let 
Mr.  Malthus  say  what  he  will,  the  first  of  those 
errors  is  not  the  true  foundation  of  that  doctrine ; 
the  second  of  those  erroi^s  does  not  contain  its  true 
application. 

Two  private  communications  on  the  paper  which 
refuted  Mr.  Malthus,  both  expressed  in  terms  of 
personal  courtesy,  for  which  I  am  bound  to  make  my 
best  acknowledgments,  have  reached  me  through  the 
Editor  of  the  London  Magazine.  One  of  them  refers 
me  '  to  the  number  of  the  A'^ew  Monthly  Magazine  for 
March  or  April,  1821,  for  an  article  on  Malthus,  in 


LETTER  IN  REPLY  TO  HAZLITT.         151 

wliich  the  view '  taken  by  myself  '  of  his  doctrine,  as 
an  answer  to  Godwin,  seems  to  have  been  anticipated.' 
In  reply  to  this  I  have  only  to  express  my  regret  that 
my  present  situation,  which  is  at  a  great  distance 
from  any  town,  has  not  yet  allowed  me  an  opportunity 
for  making  the  reference  pointed  out. — The  other 
letter  disputes  the  soundness  of  my  arguments — not 
so  much  in  themselves,  as  in  their  application  to  Mr. 
Malthus  :  '  I  know  not  that  I  am  authorised  to  speak 
of  the  author  by  name :  his  arguments  I  presume 
that  I  am  at  liberty  to  publish  :  they  are  as  follows  : 
— The  first  objection  appears  untenable  for  tliis 
reason  :  Mr.  Malthus  treats  of  the  abstract  tendency 
to  increase  in  Man,  and  in  the  Food  of  Man,  re- 
latively. Whereas  you  do  iiot  discuss  the  abstract 
tendency  to  increase,  but  only  the  measure  of  that 
increase,  which  is  food.  To  the  second  objection  I 
thus  answer :  Mr,  Godwin  contends  not  (I  presume) 
for  abstract,  essential  perfection ;  but  for  perfecition 
relating  to,  and  commensurate  with,  the  capabilities 
of  an  earthly  nature  and  habitation.  All  this  IMr, 
Malthus  admits  argumenti  gratia  :  and  at  the  same 
time  asserts  that  Mr.  Godwin's  estimate  in  his  own 
terms  is  incompatible  with  our  state.  8th  October, 
1823.' — To  these  answers  my  rejoinder  is  this  : — The 
first  argument  I  am  not  sure  that  I  perfectly  under- 
stand ;  and  therefore  I  will  not  perplex  myself  or  its 
author  by  discussing  it.  To  the  second  argument  I 
reply  thus  :  I  am  aware  that  whatsoever  Mr.  Malthus 
admits  from  Mr.  Godwin,  he  admits  only  argionenti 
gratia.  But  for  whatsoever  purpose  he  admits  it,  he 
is  bound  to  remember,  that  he  has  admitted  it.  Now 
what  is  it    that  he  has  admitted?     A  state  of  per- 


152  DE    QUINCEY. 

fection.  This  term,  undei-  any  explanation  of  it, 
betrays  liim  into  the  following  dilemma  :  Either  he 
means  absolute  perfection,  perfection  which  allows  of 
no  degrees ;  or  he  means  (in  the  sense  which  my 
friendly  antagonist  has  supposed)  relative  perfection, 
quoad  our  present  state — i.  e.  a  continual  approxi- 
mation to  the  ideal  of  absolute  perfection,  without 
ever  reaching  it.  If  he  means  the  first,  then  he  is 
exposed  to  the  objection  (which  I  have  already  insisted 
on  sufficiently)  of  bringing  the  idea  of  perfection 
under  an  inconsistent  and  destrnctory  predicate.  If 
he  means  the  second,  then  how  has  he  overthrown  the 
doctrine  of  human  perfectibility  as  he  professes  to 
have  done  1  At  this  moment,  though  the  earth  is  far 
from  exhausted  (and  still  less  its  power.s),  many 
countries  are,  according  to  Mr.  Malthus,  suffering  all 
the  evils  which  they  could  suffer  if  population  had 
reached  its  maximum  :  innumerable  children  are  born 
which  the  poverty  of  their  parents  (no  less  fatal  to 
them  than  the  limitation  of  the  earth)  causes  to  be 
thrown  back  prematurely  into  the  grave.  Now  this 
is  the  precise  Mnd  of  evil  which  Mr.  Malthus  antici- 
pates for  the  human  species  when  it  shall  have  reached 
its  numerical  maximum.  But  in  degree  the  evil  may 
then  be  much  less — even  upon  Mr.  Malthus's  own 
showing  :  for  he  does  not  fix  any  limit  to  the  increase 
of  moral  restraint,  but  only  denies  that  it  will  ever 
become  absolute  and  universal.  When  the  principle 
of  population  therefore  has  done  its  worst,  we  may 
be  suffering  the  same  kind  of  evil — but,  in  proportion 
to  an  indefinitely  mcreasing  moral  restraint,  an  in- 
definitely fZecreasing  degree  of  that  evil :  i.  e.  we  may 
continually  approximate  to    the  ideal  of  perfection  : 


LETTER    IN    KEPLY    TO    HAZLITT.  153 

i.  e.  if  the  second  sense  of  perfection  be  Mr.  Godwin's 
sense,  then  Mr.  Malthus  has  not  overthrown  Mr. 
Godwin. 

X.  Y.  Z. 

The  following  admirable  letter  *  seems  to  refer  to 
the  observations  on  Kant,  contained  in  the  Opium 
Eater's  Letters.  Perhaps  that  acute  logician  may 
be  able  to  discover  its  meaning  :  or  if  not,  he  may 
think  it  worth  preserving  as  an  illustration  of  Shak- 
speare's  profound  knowledge  of  character  displayed 
in  Ancient  Pistol. 

Can  Neptune  sleep? — Is  Willich  dead? — Him  \s\\o 
wielded  the  trident  of  Albion  !  Is  it  thus  you  trample 
on  the  ashes  of  my  friend  1  All  the  dreadful  energies 
of  thought — all  the  sophistry  of  fiction  and  the 
triumphs  of  the  human  intellect  are  waving  o'er  his 
peaceful  grave.  '  He  understood  not  Kant.'  Peace 
then  to  the  harmless  invincible.  I  have  long  been 
thinking  of  presenting  the  world  with  a  Metaphysical 
Dictionary— of  elucidating  Locke's  romance. — I  await 
with  impatience  Kant  in  English.  Give  me  that ! 
Your  letter  has  awakened  me  to  a  sense  of  your 
merits.  Beware  of  squabbles ;  1  know  the  literary 
infirmities  of  man.  Scott  rammed  his  nose  against 
mortals — he  grasped  at  death  for  fame  to  chaunt  the 
victory. 

Thine. 

How  is  the  Opium  Eater  ? 

*  This  is  attached  by  the  Editor  of  The  London  Magazine. — 11. 


THE   SERVICES   OF   MR.   RICARDO 

TO   THE 

SCIENCE   OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY, 

BRIEFLY    AND    PLAINLY    STATED.* 

{March,  1824.) 

I  DO  not  remember  that  any  pviblic  event  of  our 
own  times  has  toiiched  me  so  nearly,  or  so  much  with 
the  feelings  belonging  to  a  private  affliction,  as  the 
death  of  Mr.  Ricardo.  To  me  in  some  sense  it  was  a 
private  affliction — and  no  doubt  to  all  others  who 
knew  and  honoured  his  extraordiiiaiy  talents.  For 
great  intellectual  merit,  wherever  it  has  been  steadily 
contemplated,  cannot  but  conciliate  some  personal 
regard  :  and  for  my  own  part  I  acknowledge  that, 
abstracting  altogether  from  the  use  to  which  a  man 

*  Mr.  J.  R.  McCuLLOcn  in  his  Literature  of  Political  Economy 
makes  the  following  observations  concerning  De  Quincey's 
'  Dialogues  of  Tliree  Templars  on  Political  Economy ' : — They  are 
unequalled,  perhaps,  for  brevity,  pungency,  and  force.  They  not 
only  bring  the  Ricardiau  theory  of  value  into  strong  relief,  but 
triumphantly  repel,  or  rather  aiinihilate,  tlie  objections  urged 
against  it  by  Malthus,  in  the  pamphlet  now  referred  to  and  his 
Political  Economy,  and  by  Say,  and  others.  Tliey  may,  indeed, 
be  said  to  have  exhausted  the  subject. 


THE    SERVICES    OF    MK.    RICAKDO.  155 

of  splendid  endowments  may  apply  them — or  even 
supposing  the  case  that  he  should  deliberately  apply 
them  to  a  bad  one,  I  could  no  more  on  that  account 
withhold    my  good    wishes   and    aii'ection    from   his 
person — than,  under  any  consideration  of  their  terrific 
attributes,  I  could  forbear  to  admire  the  power  and 
the  beauty  of  the  serpent  or  tlie  panther.     Simply  on 
its  own  account,   and    without    further    question,   a 
great  intellect  challenges,  as  of  right,  not  merely  an 
interest   of   admiration — in   common   with   all   other 
exhibitions  of  power  and  magnificence — but  also  an 
interest  of  human  love,  and  (where  that  is  necessary) 
a  spiiit  of  tenderness  to  its  aberrations.     Mr.  Eicardo 
however  stood  in  no  need  of  a  partial  or  indulgent 
privilege  :  his  privilege  of  intellect  had  a  compiehen- 
sive    sanction    from   all    the    purposes    to   which    he 
applied  it  in  the  course  of  his  public  life  :  in  or  out 
of  parliament,  as  a  senator — or  as  an  author,  he  was 
known  and  honoured  as  a  public  benefactor.    Though 
connected  myself  by  private  friendship  with  persons 
of  the  political  party  hostile  to  his,  I  heard  amongst 
them  all  but  one  language  of  respect  for  his  public 
conduct.     Those,  who    stood  neutral   to  all   parties, 
remarked  that  Mr.  Ricardo's  voice — though  heard  too 
seldom  for  the  wishes  of  the  enlightened  part  of  the 
nation — was  never  raised  with   emphasis  upon  any 
question  lying  out  of  the  province  in  which  he  reigned 
as  the   paramount  authority,  except  upon  such   as 
seemed  to  aifect   some  great  interest   of  liberty  or 
religious    toleration.       And,    wherever   a    discussion 
arose  which  ti-anscended  the  level  of  temporary  and 
local    politics    (as    that    for    example    upon    corporal 
punishments),  the  weight  of  authority — which  mere 


15G  DE    QUINCEY. 

blank  ability  had  obtained  foi-  him  in  the  Houpe  of 
Commons — was  sure  to  be  thrown  into  that  view  of 
the  case  which  upheld  the  dignity  of  human  nature. 
Particijjating  most  cordially  in  these  feelings  of 
reverence  for  Mr.  Ricardo's  political  character,  I  had 
besides  a  soi'row  not  unmixed  with  self-reproach 
arising  out  of  some  considerations  more  immediately 
relating  to  myself.  In  August  and  September  18:^1' 
I  wrote  The  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater : 
and  in  the  course  of  this  little  work  I  took  occasion 
to  express  my  obligations,  as  a  student  of  Political 
Economy,  to  Mr.  PvicarJo's  'Principles  '  of  that  science. 
For  this  as  for  some  other  passages  I  was  justly* 
attacked  by  an  able  and  liberal  critic  in  the  New 
Edinburgh  Review — as  for  so  many  absurd  irrele- 
vancies :  in  that  situation  no  doubt  they  were  so  ; 
and  of  this,  in  spite  of  the  haste  in  which  I  had 
written  the  greater  part  of  the  book,  I  was  fully 
aware.  However,  as  they  said  no  more  than  wa.s 
true,  I  was  glad  to  take  that  or  any  occasion  which 
I  could  invent  for  offering  my  public  testimony  of 

*  Not  so  liowever,  let  me  say  in  passing,  for  three  supposed 
instances  of  affected  doubt ;  in  all  of  which  my  doubts  were, 
and  are  at  this  moment,  very  sincere  and  unaffected  ;  and,  in 
one  of  them  at  least,  I  am  assured  by  tliose  of  whom  I  have 
since  in(iuired  that  my  reviewer  is  undoubtedly  mistaken.  As 
another  point  which,  if  left  unnoticed,  might  affect  something 
more  important  to  myself  than  the  credit  of  my  taste  or  judg- 
ment,— let  me  inform  my  reviewer  that,  when  he  traces  an 
incident  which  I  have  recorded  most  faithfully  about  a  Malay — 
to  a  tale  of  Mr.  Hogg's,  he  makes  me  indebted  to  a  book  which 
I  never  saw.  In  saying  this  I  mean  no  disrespect  to  Mr.  Hogg  ; 
on  the  contrary,  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  never  seen  it :  for  I 
have  a  great  admimtion  of  Mr.  Hogg's  genius  ;  and  have  had 
the  honour  of  his  personal  acquaintance  for  the  last  ten  years. 


THE    SERVICES    OF    MR.    RICARDO.  157 

gratitude  to  Mr.  Eicardo.  The  truth  is — I  thought 
that  something  might  occur  to  intercept  any  more 
appropriate  mode  of  conveying  my  homage  to  Mr, 
Eicardo's  ear,  which  should  else  more  naturally  have 
been  expressed  in  a  direct  work  on  Political  Economy. 
This  fear  was  at  length  realised — not  in  the  way  I 
had  appi-ehended,  viz.  by  my  own  death — but  by  Mr. 
Eicardo's.  And  now  therefore'  I  felt  happy  that,  at 
whatever  price  of  good  taste,  I  had  in  some  imperfect 
way  made  known  my  sense  of  his  high  pretensions — 
although  unfortunately  I  had  given  him  no  means  of 
jiidging  whether  my  applause  were  of  any  value.  For 
during  the  interval  between  Sept.  1821  and  Mr. 
Eicardo's  death  in  Sept.  1823  I  had  found  no  leisure 
for  completing  my  work  on  Political  Economy :  on 
that  account  I  had  forborne  to  use  the  means  of 
introduction  to  Mr.  Eicardo  which  I  commanded 
through  my  private  connections  or  simply  as  a  man 
of  letters  :  and  in  some  measure  therefore  I  owed  it 
to  my  own  neglect — that  I  had  for  ever  lost  the 
opportunity  of  benefiting  by  Mr.  Eicardo's  conversa- 
tion or  bringing  under  his  review  such  new  specula- 
tions of  mine  in  Political  Economy  as  in  any  point 
modified  his  own  doctrines — whether  as  corrections  of 
supposed  oversights,  as  derivations  of  the  same  truth 
from  a  higher  principle,  as  further  illustrations  or 
proofs  of  anything  which  he  might  have  insufliciently 
developed,  or  simply  in  the  way  of  supplement  to  his 
known  and  voluntary  omissions.  All  this  I  should 
have  done  with  the  utmost  fearlessness  of  giving 
offence,  and  not  for  a  moment  believing  that  Mi". 
Eicardo  would  have  regarded  anything  in  the  light 
of  an   undue  liberty,  which  in  the  remotest  degree 


158  DE   QUINCEY. 

might  seem  to  affect  the  interests  of  a  science  so 
eminently  indebted  to  himself.  In  reality  candour 
may  be  presumed  in  a  man  of  first-rate  understanding 
— not  merely  as  a  moral  quality — but  almost  as  a 
part  of  his  intellectual  constitution  ^;er  se  ;  a  spacious 
and  commanding  intellect  being  magnanimous  in  a 
manner  suo  jure,  even  though  it  should  have  the 
misfortune  to  be  allied  with  a  perverse  or  irritable 
temper.  On  this  consideration  I  would  gladly  have 
submitted  to  the  review  of  Mr.  Ricardo,  as  indisput- 
ably the  first  of  critics  in  this  department,  rather 
than  to  any  other  person,  my  own  review  of  himself. 
That  I  have  forfeited  the  opportunity  of  doing  this — 
is  a  source  of  some  self-reproach  to  myself.  I  regret 
also  that  I  have  forfeited  the  opportunity  of  perhaps 
giving  pleasure  to  Mr.  Ricardo  by  liberating  him 
from  a  few  misrepresentations,  and  placing  his  vindi- 
cation upon  a  firmer  basis  even  than  that  which  he 
has  chosen.  In  one  respect  I  enjoy  an  advantage  for 
such  a  service,  and  in  general  for  the  polemic  part  of 
Political  Economy,  which  Mr.  Ricardo  did  not.  The 
course  of  my  studies  has  led  me  to  cultivate  the 
scholastic  logic.  Mr.  Ricardo  has  obviously  neglected 
it.  Confiding  in  his  own  conscious  strength,  and  no 
doubt  participating  in  the  common  error  of  modern 
times  as  to  the  value  of  artificial  logic,  he  has  taken 
for  granted  that  the  Aristotelian  forms  and  the  ex- 
quisite science  of  distinctions  matured  by  the  subtilty 
of  the  schoolmen  can  achieve  nothing  in  substance 
which  is  beyond  the  power  of  mere  sound  good  sense 
and  robust  faculties  of  reasoning ;  or  at  most  can 
only  attain  the  same  end  with  a  little  more  speed  and 
adroitness.     But  this  is  a  great  error  :  and  it  was  an 


THE    SERVICES    OF    MR.    RICARDO.  159 

ill  day  for  the  human  understanding  when  Lord 
Bacon  gave  his  countenance  to  a  notion,  which  his 
own  exclusive  study  of  one  department  in  philosophy 
could  alone  have  suggested.  Distinctions  previously 
examined — probed — and  accurately  bounded,  together 
with  a  terminology  previously  established,  are  the 
crutches  on  which  all  minds — the  weakest  and  the 
strongest — must  alike  depend  in  many  cases  of 
perplexity  :  fi'om  pure  neglect  of  such  aids,  which  are 
to  the  unassisted  understanding  what  weapons  are  to 
the  unarmed  human  strength  or  tools  and  machinery 
to  the  naked  hand  of  art,  do  many  branches  of  know- 
ledge at  this  day  languish  amongst  those  which  are 
independent  of  experiment. 

As  the  best  consolation  to  myself  for  the  lost 
opportunities  with  which  I  have  here  reproached 
myself, — and  as  the  best  means  of  doing  honour  to 
the  memory  of  Mr.  Kicardo, — I  shall  now  endeavour 
to  spread  the  knowledge  of  what  he  has  performed  in 
Political  Economy.  To  do  this  in  the  plainest  and 
most  effectual  manner,  I  shall  abstain  from  intro- 
ducing any  opinions  peculiar  to  myself,  excepting 
only  when  they  may  be  necessary  for  the  defence  of 
JNIr.  Ricardo  against  objections  which  have  obtained 
currency  from  the  celebrity  of  their  authors — or  in 
the  few  cases  where  they  may  be  called  for  by  the 
errors  (as  I  suppose  them  to  be)  even  of  Mr.  Ricardo. 
— In  using  this  language,  I  do  not  fear  to  be  taxed 
with  arrogance :  we  of  this  day  stand  upon  the 
shoulders  of  our  pi-edecessors ;  and  that  I  am  able  to 
detect  any  errors  in  Mr.  Ricai-do — I  owe,  in  most 
instances,  to  Mr.  Ricardo  himself. 

X.  Y.  Z. 


EDUCATION. 

PLANS   FOR   THE   INSTRUCTION   OF   BOYS   IN 
LARGE   NUMBERS.* 

{A2n-il  and  May,  1824.) 

This  is  the  work  of  a  very  ingenious  man,  and 
records  the  most  original  expei'iment  in  Education 
which  in  this  country  at  least  has  been  attempted 
since  the  date  of  those  communicated  by  the  Edge- 
worths.  We  say  designedly  '  in  this  country  ; '  be- 
cause to  compare  it  with  some  continental  schemes 
which  have  been  only  recently  made  known  to  the 
English  public  (and  not  fully  made  known  even  yet) 
would  impose  vipon  us  a  minute  review  of  those 
schemes,  which  would  be,  first,  disproportionate  to 
our  limits — secondly,  out  of  its  best  situation,  because 
it  would  be  desirable  to  examine  those  schemes 
sepaiutely  for  the  direct  purpose  of  determining  their 
own  absolute  value,  and  not  indirectly  and  incidentally 
for  the  purpose  of  a  comparison.  The  Madras  system, 
again,  is  excluded  from  the  comparison — not  so  much 
for  the  reason  alleged  (pp.  123-5),  by  the  author 
before   us — as    though    that    system  were  essentially 

*  Plnihifor  live  Government  and  Liberal  Instruction  of  Boys  in 
large  Numbers ;  Drairiifrmn  Exiyericncc.    London  :  1822.    8vo. 


EDUCATION.  161 

different  from  his  own  in  its  purpose  and  application  : 
the  purpose  of  the  Madras  system  is  not  exclusively 
economy  of  expense,  but  in  combination  with  that 
purpose  a  far  greater  accuracy  (and  therefore  reality) 
in  the  knowledge  communicated  than  could  be  ob- 
tained on  the  old  systems  ;  on  this  account  therefore 
the  possible  application  of  the  Madras  system  is  not 
simply  to  the  education  of  the  poor,  though  as  yet 
the  actual  application  of  it  may  have  been  chiefly  to 
them,  but  also  to  the  education  of  the  rich  ;  and  in 
fact  it  is  well  known  that  the  Madras  system  (so  far 
from  being  ess&ntlaUij  a  system  for  the  poor)  has  been 
adopted  in  some  of  the  great  classical  schools  of  the 
kingdom.*  The  difference  is  more  logically  stated 
thus — that  the  Madras  system  regards  singly  the 
quality  of  the  knowledge  given,  and  (with  a  view  to 
thai)  the  mode  of    giving  it  :    whereas   the    system, 

*  The  distiiiguisliing  excellence  of  the  lladras  system  is  not 
that  it  lodges  in  the  pupils  themselves  the  functions  which  on 
tlie  old  systems  belong  to  the  masters,  and  thus  at  the  same 
blow  by  which  it  secures  greater  accuracy  of  knowledge  gets  rid 
of  a  great  expense  in  masters  :  for  this,  though  a  great  merit,  is 
a  derivative  merit :  the  condition  of  the  possibility  of  this  ad- 
vantage lies  in  a  still  greater — viz.  in  the  artificial  tncclxanism  of 
the  system  by  which,  when  once  established,  the  system  works 
itself,  and  thus  neutralises  and  sets  at  defiance  all  difference  of 
ability  in  the  teachers — which  previously  determined  the  whole 
success  of  the  school.  Hence  is  obtained  this  prodigious  result 
— that  henceforward  the  blessing  of  education  in  its  elementary 
parts  is  made  independent  of  accident,  and  as  much  carried  out 
of  the  empire  of  luck  as  the  manufacture  of  woollens  or  cottons. 
That  it  is  mechanic,  is  no  conditional  praise  (as  alleged  by  the 
author  before  us),  but  the  absolute  praise  of  the  Madras  system  : 
neither  is  there  any  just  ground  of  fear,  as  he  and  many  others 
have  insinuated,  that  it  should  injure  the  freedom  of  the  human 
intellect. 

VOL.   I.  L 


162  DE   QUINCEY. 

whicli  we  are  going  to  review,  does  not  confine  its 
view  to  man,  as  a  being  capable  of  knowledtje,  but 
extends  it  to  man  as  a  being  capable  of  action,  moral  or 
pfudential :  it  is  therefore  a  much  more  comprehensive 
system.  The  system  before  us  does  not  exclude  the 
final  purpose  of  the  Madras  system  :  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  laudably  solicitous  for  the  fullest  and  most 
accurate  communication  of  knowledge,  and  suggests 
many  hints  for  the  attainment  of  that  end  as  just  and 
as  useful  as  they  are  enlightened.  But  it  does  not 
stop  here :  it  goes  further,  and  contemplates  the 
whole  man  with  a  reference  to  his  total  means  of  use- 
fulness and  happiness  in  life.  And  hence,  by  the  way, 
it  seems  to  us  essential — that  the  whole  child  should 
on  this  system  be  surrendered  to  the  school ;  i.  e.  that 
there  should  be  no  day-scholars  ;  and  this  principle 
we  shall  further  on  endeavour  to  establish  on  the 
evidence  of  a  case  related  by  the  author  himself.*  On 
the  whole  therefore  we  have  designedly  stated  our 
general  estimate  of  the  author's  system  with  a  refer- 
ence to  that  of  the  Edgeworths  ;  not  only  because  it 
has  the  same  comprehensiveness  of  object,  and  is  in 
some  degree  a  further  expansion  of  their  method  and 
their  principles  ;  but  also  because  the  author  himself 
strikingly  resembles  the  Edgeworths  in  style  and 
composition  of  mind ;  with  this  single  difference  per- 
haps, that  the  good  sense  and  perception  of  propriety 
(of  what  in  French  would  be  called  les  convenances), 
which  in  both  is  the  characteristic  merit  (and,  when  it 

*  We  have  since  found  that  we  have  not  room  for  it  :  the  case 
is  stated  and  argued  in  the  Appendix  (pp.  220 — 227) ;  but  in  our 
opinion  not  fairly  argued.  The  appellant's  plea  was  sound,  and 
ought  not  to  have  been  set  aside.  [At  the  end  of  the  Paper  I  have 
restored  this  '  Cask  of  Appeal  '  from  the  original  work. — H.] 


EDUCATION.  163 

comes  into  conflict  with  any  higher  quality,  the  cha- 
racteristic defect), — in  him  is  less  coloured  by  sarcastic 
and  contemptuous  feelings ;  which  in  all  cases  are  un- 
amiable  feelings,  and  argue  some  defect  of  wisdom 
and  magnanimity  ;  but,  when  directed  (as  in  the  Edge- 
worths  they  sometimes  are)  against  principles  in 
human  nature  which  lie  far  beyond  the  field  of  their 
limited  philosophy,  recoil  with  their  whole  strength 
upon  those  who  utter  them.  It  is  upon  this  consider- 
ation of  his  intellectual  afiinity  with  the  Edgeworths 
that  we  are  the  less  disposed  to  marvel  at  liis  estimate 
of  their  labours  :  that,  for  instance,  at  p.  192  he  styles 
their  work  on  education  '  inestimable,'  and  that  at 
p.  122,  though  he  stops  short  of  proposing  'divine 
honours '  to  Miss  Edgeworth,  the  course  of  his  logic 
nevertheless  binds  him  to  mean  that  on  Grecian 
principles  such  honours  are  'due  to  her.'  So  much 
for  the  general  classification  and  merits  of  the  author, 
of  whom  we  know  nothing  more  than — that,  from  his 
use  of  the  Scotticisms — '  succumb,' — '  compete,' — and 
'  in  place  of  '  for  '  instead  of '  he  ought  to  be  a  Scotch- 
man :  now  then  for  his  system. 

Of  this  we  may  judge  by  two  criteria — experiment- 
ally by  its  result,  or  a  jy^'iori  by  its  internal  aptitude 
for  attaining  its  ends.  Now  as  to  the  result,  it  must 
be  remembered  that — even  if  the  author  of  any  system 
could  be  relied  on  aa  an  impartial  witness  to  its 
result — yet,  becatise  the  result  of  a  system  of  educa- 
tion cannot  express  itself  in  any  one  insulated  fact,  it 
will  demand  as  much  judgment  to  abstract  from  any 
limited  experience  what  really  is  the  result  as  would 
have  sufficed  to  determine  its  meiits  a  priori  without 
waiting  for  any  result.     Consequently,  as  it  would  be 


164  DE    QUINCEY. 

impossible  to  exonerate  ourselves  from  the  necessity 
of  an  elaborate  act  of  judgment  by  any  appeal  to  the 
practical  test  of  the  result — seeing  that  this  result 
would  again  require  an  act  of  judgment  hardly  less 
elaborate  for  its  satisfactory  settlement  than  the  a 
priori  examination  which  it  had  been  meant  to 
supersede, — we  may  as  well  do  that  at  first  which  we 
must  do  in  the  end  ;  and,  relying  upon  our  own  un- 
derstandings, say  boldly  that  the  system  is  good  or 
bad  because  on  this  argument  it  is  evidently  cal- 
culated to  do  good  or  on  that  argument  to  do  evil, 
than  blindly  pronounce — it  is  good  or  it  is  bad,  be- 
cause it  has  produced — or  has  failed  of  producing — 
such  and  such  effects  ;  even  if  those  effects  were  easy 
to  collect.  In  fact,  for  any  conclusive  purpose  of  a 
practical  test,  the  experience  is  only  now  beginning 
to  accumulate  :  and  here  we  may  take  occasion  to 
mention  that  we  had  ourselves  been  misinformed  as 
to  the  duration  of  the  experiment ;  for  a  period  of 
four  years,  we  were  told,  a  school  had  existed  under 
the  system  here  developed :  but  this  must  be  a 
mistake,  founded  perhaps  on  a  footnote  at  p.  83  which 
says — '  The  plan  has  now  been  in  operation  more 
than  four  years  : '  but  the  plan  there  spoken  of  is  not 
the  general  system,  but  a  single  feature  of  it — viz.  the 
abolition  of  corporal  punishment  :  in  the  text  this 
plan  had  been  represented  as  an  immature  experi- 
ment, having  then  '  had  a  trial  of  nine  months '  only  : 
and  therefore,  as  more  than  three  years  nine  months 
had  elapsed  from  that  time  to  the  publication  of  the 
book,  a  note  is  properly  added  declaring  that  the  ex- 
periment had  succeeded,  and  that  the  author  could 
*  not  imagine  any  motive  strong  enough  to  force  him 


EDUCATION.  165 

back  to  the  old  practice.'  The  system  generally  how- 
ever must  have  existed  now  (i.  e.  November  1823)  for 
nearly  eight  years  at  the  least  :  so  much  is  evident 
from  a  note  at  p.  79,  where  a  main  regulation  of  the 
system  is  said  to  have  been  established  '  early  in  1816.' 
Now  a  period  of  seven  or  eight  years  must  have  been 
sufficient  to  carry  many  of  the  senior  pupils  into  active 
life,  and  to  carry  many  of  the  juniors  even  into  situa- 
tions where  they  would  be  brought  into  close  com- 
parison with  the  pupils  of  other  systems.  Conse- 
quently, so  much  experience  as  is  involved  in  the  fact 
of  the  systems  outliving  such  a  comparison — and  in 
the  continued  approbation  of  its  founder,  who  is 
manifestly  a  very  able  and  a  conscientious  man, — so 
much  experience,  we  say,  may  be  premised  for  the 
satisfaction  of  those  Avho  demand  pi-actical  tests.  For 
ourselves,  we  shall  abide  rather  in  our  valuation  of 
the  system  by  the  internal  evidence  of  its  composition 
as  stated  and  interpreted  by  its  author.  An  abstract 
of  all  that  is  essential  in  this  statement  we  shall  now 
lay  before  our  readers. 

What  is  the  characteristic  difference,  in  the  fewest 
possible  words,  of  this  system  as  opposed  to  all 
others  1  We  nowhere  find  this  stated  in  a  pointed 
manner  :  the  author  has  left  it  rather  to  be  collected 
from  his  general  exposition  ;  and  therefore  we  conceive 
that  we  shall  be  entitled  to  his  thanks  by  placing  it 
in  a  logical,  if  possible  in  an  antithetic,  shape.  In 
order  to  this,  we  ask — what  is  a  school  1  A  school  is 
a  body  of  young  persons  more  or  less  perfectly  or- 
ganised— which,  by  means  of  a  certain  constitution  or 
system  of  arrangements  (A),  aims  at  attaining  a 
certain  object  (B).     Now  in  all  former  schemes  of 


166  DE    QUINOEY, 

education  this  A  stood  to  B  the  positive  quantity 
sought  in  the  relation  of  a  logical  negative  {i.  e.  of  a 
negation  of  quantity  =  o),  or  even  of  a  matheniatic 
negative  (^.  e.  of  — x)  : — but  on  this  new  system  of  the 
author  before  us  (whom,  for  the  want  of  a  better 
name,  we  shall  call  the  Experimentalist)  A  for  the 
first  time  bears  to  B  the  relation  of  a  positive  quantity. 
The  terms  jmsitive  and  negative  are  sufficiently  opposed 
to  each  other  to  confer  upon  our  contradistinction  of 
this  system  from  all  others  a  very  marked  and  anti- 
thetic shape ;  and  the  only  question  upon  it,  which 
arises,  is  this — are  these  terms  justified  in  their 
application  to  this  case  1  That  they  are,  will  appear 
thus : — Amongst  the  positive  objects  (or  B)  of  every 
school,  even  the  very  worst,  we  must  suppose  the 
culture  of  morals  to  be  one  :  a  mere  day-school  may 
perhaps  reasonably  confine  its  pretensions  to  the  dis- 
allowance of  anything  positively  bad ;  because  here 
the  presumption  is  that  the  parents  undertake  the 
management  of  their  children  excepting  in  what 
i-egards  their  intellectual  education :  but,  wherever 
the  heads  of  a  school  step  into  the  full  duties  of  a 
child's  natural  guardians,  they  cannot  absolve  them- 
selves from  a  responsibility  for  his  morals.  Accord- 
ingly, this  must  be  assumed  of  course  to  exist  amongst 
the  positive  objects  of  every  boarding-school.  Yet  so 
far  are  the  laws  and  arrangements  of  existing  schools 
from  at  all  aiding  and  promoting  this  object,  that 
their  very  utmost  pretension  is — that  they  do  not 
injure  it.  Much  injustice  and  oppression,  for  example, 
take  place  in  the  intercourse  of  all  boys  with  each 
other ;  and  in  most  schools  '  the  stern  edict  against 
bearing  tales,'  causes  this  to  go  unredressed  (p.  78)  :  on 


i 


EDUCATION.  167 

the  other  hand,  in  a  school  where  a  system  of  nursery- 
Hke  surveillance  was  adopted,  and  '  every  trifling 
injury  was  the  subject  of  immediate  appeal  to  the 
supreme  power'  (p.  80),  the  case  was  still  worse. 
'  The  indulgence  of  this  querulousness  increased  it 
beyond  all  endurance.  Before  the  master  had  time 
to  examine  the  justice  of  one  complaint,  his  attentif)n 
was  called  away  to  redress  another ;  until,  wearied 
with  investigation  into  offences  which  were  either  too 
trifling  or  too  justly  provoked  for  punishment,  he 
ti'eated  all  complainants  with  harshness,  heard  their 
accusations  with  incredulity,  and  thus  tended,  by  a 
first  example,  to  the  re-establishment  of  the  old 
system.'  The  issue  in  any  case  was— that,  apart  from 
what  nature  and  the  education  of  real  life  did  for  the 
child's  morals,  the  school  education  did  nothing  at  all 
except  by  the  positive  moral  instruction  which  the 
child  might  draw  from  his  lessons — i.  e.  from  B.  But 
as  to  A,  i.  e.  the  school  arrangements,  either  at  best 
their  effect  was  =  0 ;  or  possibly,  by  capricious  inter- 
ference for  the  regulation  of  what  was  beyond  their 
power  to  regulate,  they  actually  disturbed  the  moral 
sense  {i.  e.  their  effect  was  =  — x).  Now,  on  the 
new  system  of  our  Experimentalist,  the  very  laws  and 
regulations,  which  are  in  any  case  necessary  to  the 
going  on  of  a  school,  have  such  an  origin  and  are  so 
administered  as  to  cultivate  the  sense  of  justice  and 
matexdally  to  enlarge  the  knowledge  of  justice.  These 
laws  emanate  from  the  boys  themselves,  and  are  ad- 
ministei'ed  by  the  boys.  That  is  to  .say,  A  (which  on 
the  old  system  is  at  best  a  mere  blank,  or  negation, 
and  sometimes  even  an  absolute  negative  with  regard 
to  B)  thus  becomes  a  positive  agent  in   relation  to 


1G8  L)E    QUINCEY. 

B — i.  e.  to  one  of  the  main  purposes  of  tlie  school. 
Again,  to  descend  to  an  illustration  of  a  lower  order, 
in  most  schools  arithmetic  is  one  part  of  B  :  now  on 
the  new  system  it  is  so  contrived  that  what  is  techni- 
cally termed  calling/  over,  which  on  any  system  is  a 
necessary  arrangement  for  the  prevention  of  mischief, 
and  which  usually  terminates  there  [i.  e.  in  an  effect 
=  0),  becomes  a  positive  means  of  cultivating  an 
elementary  rule  of  arithmetic  in  the  junior  students  — 
and  an  attention  to  accuracy  in  all  :  i.  e.  here  again, 
from  being  simply  =  0,  A  becomes  =  +  a;  in  relation 
to  B.  A  school  in  short,  on  this  system,  burns  its 
own  smoke  :  The  mere  negative  conditions  of  its  daily 
goings  on,  the  mere  waste  products  of  its  machinery, 
being  converted  into  the  positive  pabulum  of  its  life 
and  motion.  Such  then,  we  affirm,  is  the  brief 
abstract — antithetically  expressed — of  the  character- 
istic principle  by  which  the  system  under  review  is 
distinguished  from  all  former  systems.  In  relation  to 
B  (which  suppose  20  x)  A,  which  heretofore  was  =  — x, 
or  at  best  =  0,  now  becomes  =  -f-  a;,  or  +  2  a;,  or  3  a;, 
as  it  may  happen.  In  this  lies  the  merit  of  the  con- 
ception :  what  remains  to  be  inquired — is  in  what 
degree,  and  vipon  what  parts  of  B,  it  attains  this  con- 
version of  A  into  a  positive  quantity  :  and  this  will 
determine  the  merit  of  the  execution.  Let  us  now 
therefore  turn  to  the  details  of  the  book. 

The  book  may  be  properly  distributed  into  two 
parts  :  the  first  of  wdiich  from  page  1  to  page  125  in- 
clusively (comprehending  the  three  first  chapters) 
unfolds  and  reviews  the  system  :  all  that  remains  from 
page  126  to  page  218  inclvisively  {i.e.  to  the  end) — 
comprehending  four  chapters — may  be  considered  as  a 


EDUCATION.  169 

second  or  miscellaneous  p<art,  treating  of  some  general 
topics  in  the  business  of  education,  but  with  a  con- 
tinual reference  to  the  principles  laid  down  in  the 
first  part.  An  appendix,  of  twenty  pages,  contains  a 
body  of  illustrative  documents.  The  first  of  the  three 
chapters,  composing  what  we  have  called  the  first 
part,  is  entitled  Outline  of  the  System  :  and,  as  it  is 
very  brief,  we  shall  exti-act  it  nearly  entire. 

'  A  schoolmaster  being  a  governor  as  well  as  a 
teacher,  we  must  consider  the  boys  both  as  a  com- 
munity and  as  a  body  of  pupils.  The  principle  of  our 
government  is  to  leave,  as  much  as  possible,  all  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  boys  themselves  :  To  this  end  we 
permit  them  to  elect  a  committee,  which  enacts  the 
laws  of  the  school,  subject  however  to  the  veto  of  the 
head  master.  We  have  also  courts  of  justice  for  the 
trial  of  both  civil  and  criminal  causes,  and  a  vigorous 
police  for  the  preservation  of  order.  Our  rewards 
consist  of  a  few  prizes  given  at  the  end  of  each  half 
year  to  those  whose  exertions  have  obtained  for  them 
the  highest  rank  in  the  school ;  and  certain  marks 
which  are  gained  from  time  to  time  by  exertions  of 
talent  and  industry.  These  marks  are  of  two  kinds  : 
the  most  valuable,  called  premial  *  marks,  will  pur- 
chase a  holiday;  the  others  are  received  in  liquidation 
of  forfeits.  Our  punishments  +  are  fine  and  imprison- 
ment. Impositions,  public  disgrace,  and  corporeal 
pain,  have  been  for  some  years  discarded  among  us. 

*  '  Previial  marks  : '  this  designation  is  vicious  in  point  of 
logic  :  how  is  it  thus  distinguislied  from  the  h'ss  vahiable  ? 

t  'Our  punishments,'  &c.  Tliis  is  inaccurate:  by  p.  S3 
'  disability  to  fill  certain  offices  '  is  one  of  the  punishments. 


170  DE    QUINCEY. 

To  oVjtain  rank  is  an  object  of  great  ambition  among 
the  boys  ;  with  us  it  is  entirely  dependent  on  the 
state  of  their  acquirements  ;  and  our  arrangements 
according  to  excellence  are  so  frequent — that  no  one 
is  safe,  without  constant  exertion,  from  losing  his 
place.  The  boys  learn  almost  every  bi-anch  of  study  in 
classes,  that  the  master  may  have  time  for  copious  ex- 
planations ;  it  being  an  object  of  great  anxiety  with 
us,  that  the  pupil  should  be  led  to  reason  upon  all 
his  operations.  Economy  of  time  is  a  matter  of 
importance  with  us  :  we  look  upon  all  restraint  as  an 
evil,  and  to  young  persons  as  a  very  serious  evil  :  we 
are  therefore  constantly  in  search  of  means  for  en- 
suring the  effective  employment  of  every  minute 
which  is  spent  in  the  school-room,  that  the  boys  may 
have  ample  time  for  exercise  in  the  open  air.  The 
middle  state  between  work  and  play  is  extremely  un- 
favourable to  the  habits  *  of  the  p\ipil :  we  have 
succeeded,  liy  great  attention  to  order  and  regularity, 
in  reducing  it  almost  to  nothing.  We  avoid  much 
confusion  by  accustoming  the  boys  to  march  •  which 
they  do  with  great  precision,  headed  by  a  band  of 
young  performers  f  from  their  own  body.' 

Such  is  the  outline  of  the  system  as  sketched  by 
the  author  himself  :  to  us  however  it  appears  an 
insufficient  outline  even  for  '  the  general  reader  '  to 
whom  it  is  addressed  :  without  having  '  any  intention 
of  reducing  the  system  to  practice,'  the  most  general 
reader,  if  he  asks  for  any  information  at  all,  will  ask 
for  more  than  this.     We  shall  endeavour  therefore  to 

*  '  Habits  ! '  habits  of  what  ? 
t   '  Peifoimers  ! '  Miosical  performers,  we  presume. 


EDUCATION.  171 

draw  up  an  account  of  the  plan  somewhat  less  meagre, 
by  separating  the  important  from  the  trivial  details. 
For  this  purpose  we  shall  begin — 1.  with  the  govern- 
ment of  the  school ;  i.  e.  with  an  account  of  the 
legislative,  the  executive,  and  the  judicial  powers, 
where  lodged — held  by  what  tenure — and  how  ad- 
ministered. The  legislative  power  is  vested  in  a  com- 
mittee of  boys  elected  by  the  boys  themselves.  The 
members  are  elected  monthly ;  the  boy,  who  ranks 
highest  in  the  school,  electing  one  member  ;  the  two 
next  in  rank  another ;  the  three  next  a  third  ;  and  so 
on.  The  head-master  as  well  as  all  the  under-masters 
are  members  by  virtue  of  their  office.  This  arrange- 
ment might  seem  likely  to  throw  a  dangerous  weight 
in  the  deliberations  of  the  *  house  '  into  the  hands  of 
the  executive  power,  especially  as  the  head-master 
might  pursue  Queen  Anne's  policy  under  the  Tory 
ministers — and,  by  introducing  the  fencing-master — 
the  dancing-master- — the  riding-master,  &c.  under  the 
unconstitutional  equivocation  of  the  word  '  teacJiers,' 
carry  a  favourite  measure  in  the  teeth  of  the  patriotic 
party.  Hitherto  however  the  reigning  sovereign  has 
shown  so  laudable  a  desire  to  strengthen  those  checks 
upon  his  own  authority  which  make  him  a  limited 
monarch — that  '  only  one  teacher  has  been  in  the 
habit  of  attending  the  committee's  meetings  '  (p.  5)  : 
and,  where  any  teacher  himself  happens  to  be  inter- 
ested in  the  question  b^foi'e  the  house  (e.  g.  in  a  case 
of  appeal  from  any  decision  of  his),  '  it  has  lately  been 
the  etiquette '  for  that  one  who  does  attend  to  decline 
voting.  Thus  we  see  that  the  liberty  of  the  subject  is 
on  the  growth  :  which  is  a  sure  argument  that  it  has 
not  been  abused.     In  fact,   as  a  fresh  proof  of  the 


172  DE    QUINOEY. 

eternal  truth — that  in  proportion  as  human  beings 
are  honourably  confided  in,  they  will  in  the  gross  be- 
come woi'thy  of  confidence,  it  will  give  pleasure  to  the 
reader  to  be  informed  that,  though  this  committee 
*  has  the  formation  of  all  the  laws  and  regulations  of 
the  school  (excepting  such  as  determine  the  hours  of 
attendance  and  the  regular  amount  of  exercises  to  be 
performed),'  yet  '  the  master's  assent  has  never  even 
in  a  single  instance  been  withheld  or  even  delayed.' 
'  I  do  not  remember,'  says  Sir  William  Temple  in  1683 
to  his  son,  '  ever  to  have  refvised  anything  you  have 
desired  of  me  ;  which  I  take  to  be  a  greater  compli- 
ment to  you  than  to  myself ;  since  for  a  young  man 
to  make  none  but  reasonable  desires  is  yet  more  ex- 
traordinary than  for  an  old  man  to  think  them  so.' 
A  good  arrangement  has  been  adopted  for  the  purpose 
of  combining  the  benefits  of  mature  deliberation  with 
the  vigour  and  dispatch  necessai-y  for  sudden  emer- 
gencies :  by  a  standing  order  of  the  committee  a  week's 
notice  must  be  given  before  a  new  law  can  be  intro- 
duced for  discussion  :  in  cases  of  urgency  therefore  a 
sort  of  orders  of  council  are  passed  by  a  sub-committee 
composed  of  two  principal  officers  for  the  time  being  : 
these  may  of  course  be  intercepted  in  limine  by  the 
veto  of  the  master ;  and  they  may  be  annulled  by  the 
general  committee  :  in  any  case  they  expire  in  a 
fortnight :  and  thus  not  only  is  a  present  necessity 
met,  but  also  an  opportunity  gained  for  trying  the 
effect  of  a  law  before  it  is  formally  proposed.  The 
executive  body,  exclusively  of  its  standing  members 
the  upper  and  lower  masters,  is  composed  of  a  sheriff 
(whose  duties  are  to  levy  fines  imposed  by  the  court 
of  justice,  and  to   imprison  on  non-payment) — of   a 


EDUCATION.  173 

magistrate,  and  of  two  constables.  All  these  officers 
are  elected  every  month  by  the  committee  immediately 
after  its  own  election.  The  magistrate  is  bound,  in 
conjunction  with  his  constables,  to  detect  all  offences 
committed  in  the  school  :  petty  cases  of  dispute  he 
decides  himself,  and  so  far  becomes  a,  judicial  officer  • 
cases  beyond  his  own  jurisdiction  he  sends  to  the 
attorney-general,  directing  him  to  draw  an  impeach- 
ment against  the  offending  party  :  he  also  enforces  all 
penalties  below  a  certain  amount.  Of  the  judicial 
body  we  shall  speak  a  little  more  at  length.  The 
principal  officers  of  the  court  are  the  judge  who  is 
elected  monthly  by  the  committee,  and  the  attorney- 
general  who  is  appointed  at  the  same  time  by  the 
master.  The  court  assembles  every  week  :  and  the 
jury,  consisting  of  six,  is  '  chosen  by  lot  from  among 
the  whole  number  of  qualified  boys  : '  disqualifications 
arise  in  three  ways  ;  on  account  of  holding  a  judicial 
office,  on  account  of  conviction  by  the  court  within 
the  preceding  month,  and  on  account  of  youth  (or, 
what  we  presume  to  be  tantamount,  being  '  in  certain 
lower  classes  ').  The  jury  choose  their  own  foreman. 
The  attorney-general  and  the  accused  party,  if  the 
case  be  penal,  and  each  disputant,  if  civil,  has  a 
peremptory  challenge  of  three,  and  an  unlimited  right 
of  challenge  for  cause.  The  judge  decides  upon  the 
validity  of  the  objections.  Such  is  the  constitution 
of  the  court :  its  forms  of  proceeding  we  cannot  state 
in  fewer  words  than  those  of  the  Experimentalist, 
which  we  shall  therefore  quote  :  '  The  officers  of  the 
court  and  the  jury  having  taken  their  seats,  the 
defendant  (when  the  cause  is  penal)  is  called  to  the 
bar  by  the  crier  of  the  court,  and  placed  between  the 


174  DE    QUINCEY. 

Constables.  The  clerk  of  the  court  then  reads  the 
indictment,  at  the  close  of  which  the  defendant  is 
asked  if  he  object  to  any  of  the  jury — when  he  may 
make  his  challenges  (as  before  stated).  The  same 
question  is  put  to  the  attorney-general.  A  short 
time  is  then  allowed  the  defendant  to  plead  guilty,  if 
he  be  so  disposed  :  he  is  asked  no  question  however 
that  he  may  not  be  induced  to  tell  a  falsehood  :  but, 
in  order  to  encourage  an  acknowledgment  of  the  fault, 
when  he  pleads  guilty — a  small  deduction  is  made 
from  the  penalty  appointed  by  the  law  for  the 
offence.  The  consequence  is — ^that  at  least  five  out 
of  six  of  those  who  are  justly  accused  acknowledge 
the  offence  in  the  first  instance.  If  the  defendant  be 
determined  to  stand  his  trial,  the  attorney-general 
opens  the  case  and  the  trial  proceeds.  The  defendant 
may  either  plead  his  own  cause,  or  employ  a  school- 
fellow as  counsel — which  he  sometimes  does.  The 
judge  takes  notes  of  the  evidence,  to  assist  him  in 
delivering  his  charge  to  the  jury  :  in  deterroining  the 
sentence  he  is  guided  by  the  regulations  enacted  by 
the  committee,  which  affix  punishments  varying  with 
the  magnitude  of  the  offence  and  the  age  of  the 
defendant,  but  invest  the  judge  with  the  power  of 
increasing  or  diminishing  the  penalty  to  the  extent  of 
one-fourth.'  A  copy  of  the  sentence  is  laid  before  the 
master,  who  has  of  course  '  the  power  of  mitigation  or 
pardon.'  From  the  decision  of  the  court  there  lies 
an  appeal  to  the  committee,  which  is  thus  not  only 
the  legislative  body,  but  also  the  svipreme  court  of 
judicature.  Two  such  appeals  however  are  all  that 
have  yet  occurred  :  both  were  brought  by  the  attor- 
ney-general— of   course  therefore  against  verdicts  of 


EDUCATION.  175 

acquittal  ;  and  both  verdicts  were  reversed.  Fresh 
evidence  however  was  in  both  cases  laid  before  the 
committee  in  addition  to  that  which  had  been  heard 
in  the  court  below  ;  and  on  this  as  well  on  other 
grounds  there  was  good  reason  to  acquit  the  jury  of 
all  partiality.  Whilst  appeals  have  thus  been  so  rare 
from  the  verdicts  of  juries,  appeals  from  the  decisions 
of  the  magistrate,  and  even  from  those  of  the  teachers, 
have  been  frequent  :  generally  indeed  the  decisions 
have  been  affirmed  by  the  committee ;  and,  when 
they  have  been  reversed,  in  all  but  two  cases  the  re- 
versal has  met  with  the  sanction  of  the  teachers  as 
a  body.  Even  in  these  two  (where,  by  the  way,  the 
original  decision  was  only  modified  and  not  annulled)^ 
the  Experimentalist  is  himself  of  opinion  (p.  12)  that 
the  non-concurrence  of  the  teachers  may  possibly  have 
been  owing  to  a  partiality  on  their  side.  So  far  in- 
deed as  his  experience  had  then  extended,  the  Experi- 
mentalist tells  us  (p.  79)  that  'one  solitary  instance 
only  '  had  occurred  in  which  the  verdict  of  the  jury 
did  not  coincide  with  his  own  opinion.  This  judgment, 
deliberately  pronounced  by  so  competent  a  judge, 
combined  with  the  entire  acquiescence  in  the  verdict 
of  the  jury  which  is  argued  by  the  non-existence  of 
any  appeals  except  on  the  side  of  the  crown  (and  then 
only  in  two  instances),  is  a  very  striking  attestation 
to  the  spirit  of  conscientious  justice  developed  in  the 
students  by  this  confidence  in  their  incorruptible 
integrity.  *  Great,'  says  the  Expei-imentalist,  '  great, 
but  of  course  unexpressed,  anxiety  has  more  than 
once  been  felt  by  us — lest  the  influence  of  a  leading 
boy,  which  in  every  school  must  be  considerable, 
should  ovex'come  the  vutue  of  the  jui-y  :  but  our  fears 


176  DE    QUINCEY, 

have  been  uniformly  relieved,  and  the  hopes  of  the 
offender  crushed,  by  the  voice  of  the  foreman  pro- 
nouncing, in  a  shrill  but  steady  tone,  the  awful  word 
— Guilty  ! '  Some  persons,  who  hate  all  innovations, 
will  pronounce  all  this  '  mummery,^  which  is  a  very 
compendious  piece  of  criticism.  For  ourselves,  though 
we  cannot  altogether  agree  with  the  Experimentalist, 
who  seems  to  build  too  much  on  an  assumption  that 
nature  and  increasing  intercourse  with  human  life 
contribute  nothing  of  themselves  without  any  arti- 
ficial discipline  to  the  evolution  and  culture  of  the 
sense  of  justice  and  to  the  power  of  the  understand- 
ing for  discovering  where  justice  lies,  yet  thus  much 
is  evident,  1.  That  the  intellectual  faculties  must  be 
sharpened  by  the  constant  habit  of  discriminating 
the  just  and  the  unjust  in  concrete  cases  such  as  a 
real  experience  of  life  produces ;  2.  That  the  moral 
sense  must  be  deepened,  if  it  were  only  by  looking 
back  upon  so  large  a  body  of  decisions,  and  thus 
measuring  as  it  were,  by  the  resistance  which  they 
had  often  overcome  arising  out  of  their  own  immedi- 
ate interest,  the  mightiness  of  the  con'scientious  power 
within  which  had  compelled  them  to  such  decisions ; 
3.  That  all  sorts  of  forensic  ability  is  thus  cherished  ; 
and  much  ability  indeed  of  larger  application  :  thus 
the  logical  faculty  of  abstracting  the  essential  from 
the  accidental  is  involved  in  the  summing  up  of  the 
judge ;  in  the  pleadings  for  and  against  are  involved 
the  I'hetorical  arts  of  narrating  facts  perspicuously — 
of  aiTanging  arguments  in  the  best  order  of  meeting 
(therefore  of  remembering)  the  counter-arguments ; 
of  solving  sophisms  ;  of  disentangling  misrepresent- 
ations— of  weighing  the  value  of  probabilities — to  say 


EDUCATION.  177 

nothing  of  elocution  and  the  arts  of  style  and  diction 
which  even  the  records  of  the  court  and  the  committee 
(as  is  urged  at  p.  105)  must  tend  to  cultivate  :  4.  (to 
descend  to  a  humbler  use)  that  in  this  way  the  master 
is  absolved  from  the  grievous  waste  of  time  in  ad- 
ministering justice,  which  on  the  old  system  was 
always  imperfect  justice  that  it  might  waste  but 
little  time,  and  which  yet  wasted  much  time  though 
it  was  imperfect  justice.  The  author's  own  moral  of 
this  innovation  is  as  follows  (p.  76)  ;  and  with  this 
we  shall  leave  the  subject  :  '  "We  shall  be  disappointed 
if  the  intelligent  reader  have  not  already  discovered 
that  by  the  establishment  of  a  system  of  legislation 
and  jurisprudence  wherein  the  power  of  the  master  is 
bounded  by  genei'al  rules,  and  the  duties  of  the 
scholar  accurately  defined,  and  where  the  boys  are 
called  upon  to  examine  and  decide  upon  the  conduct 
of  their  fellows,  we  have  provided  a  course  of  instruc- 
tion in  the  great  code  of  morality  which  is  likely  to 
produce  far  more  powerfvil  and  lasting  effects  than 
any  quantity  of  mere  precept.' 

We  now  pass  to  the  other  characteristics  of  the  new 
system,  which  seem  to  lie  chiefly  in  what  relates  to 
economy  of  time,  rewards  and  inimshments,  the  motives 
to  exertion,  and  voluntary  labour.  For,  as  to  the 
musical  'performances  (which  occur  more  than  twenty 
times  a  day),  we  see  no  practical  use  in  them  except 
that  they  regulate  the  marching  \  aud  the  marching 
it  is  said  teaches  to  measure  time  :  and  measuring 
time  accurately  contributes  '  to  the  order  aud  celerity 
with  which  the  various  evolutions  of  the  school 
are  performed,'  and  also  to  the  conquest  of  '  serious 
impediments  of  speech.'  But  the  latter  case  not 
VOL.  I.  M 


178  DE    QUINCEY. 

occuri'ing  (we  presume)  very  frequently,  and  niarcbitig 
accurately  not  being  wholly  dejjendant  on  music,— it 
appears  to  us  that  a  practice,  whicli  tends  to  throw  an 
air  of  fanciful  trifling  over  the  excellent  good  sense  of 
the  system  in  other  res-pects,  would  be  better  omitted. 
Division  into  classes  again,  though  insisted  on  by  the 
Experimentalist  (see  pp.  290,  291)  in  a  way  whicli 
would  lead  us  to  suppose  it  a  novelty  in  his  own 
neighbourhood,  is  next  to  universal  in  England  ;  and 
in  all  the  great  grammar  schools  has  been  established 
for  ages.  All  that  distinguishes  this  arrangement  in 
his  use  of  it — is  this,  that  the  classes  are  vai-iable  : 
that  is,  the  school  forms  by  different  combinations 
according  to  the  subject  of  study ;  the  boys,  who 
study  Greek  together,  are  not  the  same  who  study 
arithmetic  together.  Dismissing  therefore  these  two 
arrangements  as  either  not  characteristic  or  not 
laudably  characteristic,  we  shall  make  a  brief  ex- 
position of  the  others.  1.  Economy  of  Time  : — -'We 
have  been  startled  at  the  reflection '  (says  the  Experi- 
mentalist)— 'that  if,  by  a  faulty  arrangement,  one 
minute  be  lost  to  sixty  of  our  boys,  the  injury  sus- 
tained would  be  equal  to  the  waste  of  an  hour  by  a 
single  individual.'  Hence,  as  the  Experimentalist 
justly  argues,  the  use  of  classes ;  by  means  of  which 
ten  minutes  spent  by  the  tutor  in  explaining  a 
difficult  point  to  a  class  of  ten  boys  become  equal  to 
100  minutes  distributed  ainongst  them  severally. 
Great  improvement  in  the  economising  of  time  was  on 
this  system  derived  from  exacting  'an -almost  super- 
stitious punctuality  '  of  the  inonitor,  whose  duty  it  is 
to  summon  the  school  to  all  its  changes  of  employment 
by  ringing  a  bell.     It  is  worthy  of  notice,  but  to  us 


EDUCATION.  179 

not  at  all  surprising,  that — '  when  the  duty  of  the 
monitor  was  easy,  and  he  had  time  for  play,  the 
exact  moment  for  ringing  the  bell  was  but  seldom 
observed  :  but  when,  as  the  system  grew  more 
complex,  he  was  more  constantly  in  requisition,  it 
was  found  that  with  increased  labour  came  increased 
perfection  :  and  the  same  boy  who  had  complained  of 
the  difficulty  of  being  punctual  when  he  had  to  ring 
the  bell  only  ten  times  in  the  day,  found  his  duty 
comparatively  easy  when  his  memory  was  taxed  to  a 
four-fold  amount.  It  is  amusing  to  see  what  a  living 
timepiece  the  giddiest  boy  will  become  during  his  week 
of  office.  The  succession  of  monitors  gradually  infuses 
a  habit,  and  somewhat  of  a  love  of  punctuality,  into 
the  body  scholastic  itself.  The  masters  also  cannot 
think  of  being  absent  when  the  scholars  are  waiting 
for  them  :  and  thus  the  nominal  and  the  real  hours  of 
attendance  become  exactly  the  same.' — 2.  Motives  to 
Exertion.  '  After  furnishing  the  pupil  with  the 
opportunity  of  spending  his  time  to  the  greatest 
advantage,  our  next  case  was  to  examine  how  we  had 
supplied  him  with  motives'  for  so  spending  it  (p.  92). 
These  are  ranged  under  five  heads, — *  Love  of  know- 
ledge— love  of  employment — emulation — hope  of  re- 
ward— and  fear  of  punishment,' — and  according  to 
what  the  Experimentalist  rightly  thinks  '  their  order 
of  excellence.'  The  three  last,  he  alleges,  are  stimuli  j 
and  of  necessity  lose  their  power  by  constant  use. 
Love  of  employment,  though  a  more  durable  motive, 
leaves  the  pupil  open  to  the  attractions  of  any  other 
employment  that  may  chance  to  offer  itself  in  com- 
.  petition  with  knowledge.  Love  of  knowledge  for  its 
own    sake    therefore    is    the    mainspring    lelied  on; 

M   2 


180  DE    QUINCEY. 

insomuch  that  the  Experimentalist  gives  it  as  his 
opinion  (p.  96)  that  '  if  it  were  possible  for  the  pupil 
to  acquire  a  love  of  knowledge,  and  that  only  during 
the  time  he  remained  at  school,  he  would  have  done 
more  towards  insui'ing  a  stock  of  knowledge  in 
maturer  age  than  if  he  had  been  the  recipient  of  as 
much  learning  as  ever  was  infused  into  the  passive 
school-boy  '  by  any  means  which  fell  short  of  gener- 
ating such  a  principle  of  exertion.  We  heartily  agree 
with  him  :  and  we  are  further  of  opinion  that  this 
love  needs  not  to  be  generated  as  an  independent 
birth  previously  to  our  commencing  the  labour  of 
tuition,  but  that  every  system  of  tuition  in  propor- 
tion as  it  approaches  to  a  good  oue  will  inevitably 
involve  the  generation  of  this  love  of  knowledge 
concurrently  with  the  generation  of  knowledge  itself. 
Most  melancholy  are  the  cases  which  have  come 
under  our  immediate  notice  of  good  faculties  wholly 
lost  to  their  possessor  and  an  incurable  disgust 
for  literature  and  knowledge  founded  to  our  certain 
knowledge  solely  on  the  stupidity  and  false  methods 
of  the  teacher,  who  alike  in  what  he  knew  or  did 
not  know  was  incapable  of  connecting  one  spark  of 
pleasurable  feeling  with  any  science,  by  leading  his 
pupils'  minds  to  re-act  upon  the  knowledge  he  at- 
tempted to  convey.  Being  thus  important,  how  shall 
a  love  of  knowledge  be  created  1  According  to  the 
Experimentalist,  first  of  all  (p.  97 — to  the  word  '  zest ' 
in  p.  107)  by  combining  the  sense  of  obvious  utility 
with  all  the  elementaiy  exercises  of  the  intellect  : — 
secondly  (from  p.  108 — to  the  word  '  rock  '  in  p.  114) 
by  matching  the  difficulties  of  the  learner  exactly 
•with  his   capacity  : — thirdly    (from    p.    114 — to    the 


EDUCATION.  181 

word  'attention'  in  p.  117)  by  connecting  with  the 
learner's  progress  the  sense  of  continual  success  : — • 
fourthly  (from  p.  117 — to  the  word  'co-operation  '  in 
p.  121)  by  communicating  clear,  vivid  and  accurate 
conceptions.  The  first  means  is  illustrated  by  a 
reference  to  the  art  of  learning  a  language — to  arith- 
metic— to  surveying,  and  to  the  writing  of  '  themes.' 
Can  any  boy,  for  instance,  reconcile  himself  to  the 
loathsome  effort  of  learning  '  Propria  qum  maribus ' 
by  any  the  dimmest  sense  of  its  future  utility  1  No, 
we  answer  with  the  Experimentalist :  and  we  go 
farther  even  than  the  Experimentalist  is  disposed  to 
do  (p.  98)  ;  for  we  deny  the  existence  of  any  future 
utility.  We,  the  reviewer  of  this  book,  at  eight 
years  of  age,  though  even  then  passionately  fond  of 
study  and  disdainful  of  childish  sports,  passed  some 
of  the  most  wretched  and  ungenial  days  of  our  life  in 
'  learning  by  hem-t,'  as  it  is  called  (oh  !  most  ironical 
misnomer !),  Projn'ia  quce  marihus,  '  Quce  genus,'  and 
'  As  in  ]yrcesenti,'  a  thi-ee-headed  monster  worse  than 
Cerberus  :  we  did  learn  them  ad  unguem  ;  and  to  this 
hour  their  accursed  barbarisms  cling  to  our  memory 
as  ineradicably  as  the  golden  lines  of  ^schylus  or 
Shakspeare.  And  what  was  our  profit  from  all  tliis 
loathsome  labour,  and  the  loathsome  heap  of  rubbish 
thus  deposited  in  the  memory  1  Attend,  if  you 
please,  good  reader  :  the  first  professes  to  teach  the 
irregulai'ities  of  nouns  as  to  gender  {i.  e.  which  nouns 
having  a  masculine  termination  are  yet  feminine,  ttc), 
the  second  to  teach  the  irregularities  of  nouns  as  to 
number  (i,.  e.  which  want  the  singular,  which  the 
plural),  the  third  to  teach  the  irregularities  of  verbs 
{i.  e.  their  deviations  from  the  generic  forms  of  the 


182  DE    QUINCEY. 

preterite  and  the  supine)  :  this  is  wliat  they  2)'}'flf<^ss 
to  teach.  Suppose  then  their  professions  realised, 
what  is  the  result  1  Why  that  you  have  laboriously 
anticipated  a  case  of  anoiualy  which,  if  it  do  actually 
occur,  could  not  possibly  cost  more  trouble  to  explain 
at  the  time  of  its  occurrence  than  you  are  thus  pre- 
mising. This  is  as  if  a  man  should  sit  down  to  cull 
all  the  difficult  cases  of  action  which  could  ever  occur 
to  him  in  his  relations  of  son,  father,  citizen,  neigh- 
bour, public  functionary,  &c.  under  the  plea  that  he 
would  thus  have  got  over  the  labour  of  discussion 
before  the  case  itself  arrived.  Supposing  that  this 
could  be  accomplished,  what  would  it  effect  but  to 
cancel  a  benevolent  arrangement  of  providence  by 
which  the  difficulties  of  life  are  distributed  with 
tolerable  equality  throughout  its  whole  course,  and 
obstinately  to  accumulate  them  all  upon  a  particular 
period.  Sufficient  for  the  day  is  its  own  evil :  dis- 
patch your  business  as  it  arises,  and  every  day  clears 
itself  :  but  suffer  a  few  months  of  unaudited  accounts, 
or  of  unanswered  letters,  to  accumulate ;  and  a 
mountain  of  arrears  is  before  you  which  years  seem 
insufficient  to  get  rid  of.  This  sort  of  accumulation 
arises  in  the  shape  of  arrears :  but  any  accumulation 
of  trouble  out  of  its  proper  place, — i.  e.  of  a  distributed 
trouble  into  a  state  of  convergement, — no  matter 
whether  in  the  shape  of  needless  anticipation  or  need- 
less procrastination,  has  equally  the  practical  effect  of 
converting  a  light  trouble  (or  none  at  all)  into  a  heavy 
and  hateful  one.  The  daily  experience  of  books, 
actual  intercourse  with  Latin  authors,  is  sufficient  to 
teach  all  the  irregularities  of  that  language  :  just  as 
the  daily  experience  of  an  English  child  leads  him 


EDUCATION.  183 

without  trouble   into  all   the   anomalies  of    his   own 
language.     And,  to  return  to  the  question  wliich  we 
put — '  What  was  our   profit   from  all  this  loathsome 
labour  t '     In  this   way   it   was,   viz.    in    the  way   of 
actual  experience  that  we,  the  reviewer  of  this  book, 
did  actually   in   the  end  come  to  the   knowledge  of 
those  irregularities  which  the  three  elegant  poems  in 
question  profess  to  communicate.     Mark  this,  reader  : 
tlie  logic  of  what  we  are  saying — is  first,  that,  if  tliey 
did  teach  what   they  profess,  they  would  attain  that 
end   by  an  artificial   means   far  moie   laborious  than 
the  natural  means  :  and  secondly,  that  in  fact  they  do 
7iot  attain   their  end.     The  reason  of  this — is  partly 
the   perplexed   and   barbarous    texture  of    the   verse, 
which  for  metrical  purposes,  i.  e.  to  keep  the  promise 
of  metre  to  the  mere  technical  scansion,  is  obliged  to 
abandon  all  those  natural  beauties  of  metre  in  the 
fluent   connection   of    the    words,    in  the   rhythmus, 
cadence,  caesura,  &c.  which  alone  recommend  metre  as 
a  better  or  more  rememberable  form  for  conveying 
knowledge  than   prose  :  prose,  if   it  has  no  music,  at 
any  rate  does  not  compel  the  most  inartificial  wx-iter 
to    dislocate,  and    distort    it    into    non-intelligibility. 
Another  reason    is,    that    '  As  in  prcesenfi '   and   its 
companions,  are  not  so  much  adapted  to  the  reading 
as  to  the  writing  of  Latin.     For  instance,  I  remember 
(we  will  suppose)  this  sequence  of  '  tango  tetigi  '  from 
the  'As  in  P.'     'Now,  if  I  am  reading  Latin   I  meet 
either  with  the  tense  '  tango,'  or  the  tense  '  tetigi.'    In 
the  former  case,  I  have  no  difliculty  ;  for  there  is  as 
yet  no  irregularity  :  and  therefore  it  is  impertinent 
to   offer   assistance  :  in   the  latter   case   I    do  find    a 
dilliculty,  iov,  according  to  the  models  of  verbs  whii'h 


184  DE    QUINCEY. 

I  have  learned  iu  my  grammar,  there  is  no  possible 
verb  which  could  yield  tetigi  :  for  such  a  verb  as 
tetiyo  even  ought  to  yield  tetixi :  here  therefore  I 
should  be  glad  of  some  assistance  ;  but  just  here  it  is 
that  I  obtain  none  :  for,  because  I  remember  '  tango 
tetigi '  in  the  direct  order,  it  is  quite  contrary  to  the 
laws  of  association  which  govern  the  memory  in  such 
a  case,  to  suppose  that  I  i-emember  the  inverted  order 
of  tetigi  tango — any  more  than  the  forward  repetition 
of  the  Lord's  prayer  ensures  its  backward  repetition. 
The  practical  applicability  of  '  As  in  prcesenti '  is 
therefore  solely  to  the  act  of  writing  Latin  :  for, 
having  occasion  to  translate  the  words  '  I  touched  '  I 
search  for  the  Latin  equivalent  to  the  English  word 
touch — find  that  it  is  tango,  and  then  am  reminded 
(whilst  forming  the  preterite)  that  tango  makes  not 
tanxi  but  *  tetigi.''  Such  a  use  therefore  I  might  by 
possibility  derive  from  my  long  labours  :  meantime 
even  here  the  service  is  in  all  probability  doubly 
superfluous  :  for,  by  the  time  that  I  am  called  on  to 
write  Latin  at  all,  experience  will  have  taught  me  that 
tango  makes  tetigi ;  or,  supposing  that  I  am  required 
to  write  Latin  as  one  of  the  earliest  means  for  gaining 
experience,  even  in  that  case  the  very  same  dictionary 
which  teaches  me  what  is  Latin  for  '  touch  '  teaches 
me  what  is  the  irregular  preterite  and  supine  of  tango. 
And  thus  the  '  upshot '  (to  use  a  homely  word)  of  the 
whole  business — is  that  an  effort  of  memory,  so  great 
as  to  be  capable  otherwise  directed  of  mastering  a 
science,  and  secondly  (because  directed  to  an  unnatural 
composition,  viz.  -an  arrangement  of  metre,  which  is 
at  once  the  rudest  and  the  most  elaborately  artificial), 
so  disgusting  as  that  no  accession  of  knowledge  could 


EDUCATION.  185 

compensate  the  injury  thus  done  to  the  simplicity  of 
the  child's  understanding,  by  connecting  pain  and  a 
sense  of  unintelligible  mystery  with  his  earliest  steps 
in  knowledge, — all  this  hyperbolical  apparatus  and 
machinery  is  worked  for  no  one  end  or  purpose  that 
is  not  better  answered  by  a  question  to  his  tutor,  by 
consulting  his  dictionary,  or  by  the  insensible  progress 
of  daily  experience.  Even  this  argument  derived  from 
its  utter  uselessness  does  not  however  weigh  so  much 
with  us  as  the  other  argument  derived  from  the  want 
of  common-sense,  involved  in  the  wilful  forestalling 
and  artificial  concentrating  into  one  long  rosary  of 
anomalies,  what  else  the  nature  of  the  case  has  by 
good  luck  dispersed  over  the  whole  territory  of  the 
Latin  language.  To  be  consistent,  a  tutor  should 
take  the  same  proleptical  course  with  regard  to  the 
prosody  of  the  Latin  language  :  every  Latin  hyper- 
dissyllable  is  manifestly  accentuated  according  to  the 
following  law  :  if  the  penultimate  be  long,  that 
syllable  inevitably  claims  the  accent  ;  if  short,  in- 
evitably it  rejects  it — i.  e.  gives  it  to  the  ante-penulti- 
mate. The  determining  syllable  is  thex'efore  the  penul- 
timate ;  and  for  the  due  reading  of  Latin  the  sole 
question  is  about  the  quantity  of  the  penultimate. 
According  to  the  logic  thei-efore  which  could  ever 
have  introduced  '  As  hi  jyrcesenti'  the  tutor  ought  to 
make  his  pvipils  commit  to  memory  every  individual 
word  in  which  the  quantity  was  not  predetermined 
by  a  mechanical  i-ule — (as  it  is  e.g.  in  the  gen.  plural 
drum  of  the  second  declension,  the  erunt  of  the  third 
per.  plurals  of  the  preterite,  &c.,  or  the  cases  where 
the  vowel  is  long  by  position).  But  what  man  of 
sense  would  forbear  to  cry  out  in  such  a  case — '  Leave 


186  DE    QUINCEY. 

the  poor   child   to  his  daily  reading  :  practice,  under 
correct  tuition,  will  give  him  insensibly  and  without 
effort  all  that  you  would  thus  endeavour  to  communi- 
cate through  a  most  Herculean  exertion,'     Whom  has 
it  cost   any  trouble  to  learn  the  accentuation  of  his 
own  language  1     How  has  he  learned  that  ?     Simply 
by  copying  others — and  so  much  without  effort,  that 
the  effort   (and  a  vei-y  great  effort)  would  have  been 
7iot  to  copy  them.     In   that  way  let  him  learn   the 
quantity   of    Latin   and    Greek    penultimates.     That 
Edmund  Burke  could  violate  the  quantity  of  the  word 
'  Vectigal '  was  owing  to  his  tutor's  ignoi'ance,  who 
had  allowed  him  so  to  read  it ;  that  Lord  North,  and 
every  other  Etonian  in  the  house,  knew  better — was 
owing  not  to  any  disproportionate  effort  of  memory 
directed  to  that  particular  word,  as  though  they  had 
committed  to  memory  a  rule  enjoining  them  to  place 
the  accent  on  the  penultimate  of  the  word  vectigal  : 
their  knowledge  no  more  rested  on  such  an  anticipa- 
tion by  express  rules  of   their   own  experience,  than 
Burke's  ignorance  of  the  quantity  on  the  want  of  such 
anticipation  ;   the  anticipation  was  needless — coming 
from  a  tutor  who  knew  the  quantity,  and  impossible 
— coming   from  a  tutor  who   knew  it  not.     At  this 
moment  a  little  boy  (three  years  old)  is  standing  by 
our  table,  and  repeatedly  using  the  word  inatis  for  7nen: 
his  sister  (five  years  old),  at  his  age,  made  the  very 
same  mistake :  but  she  is  now  correcting  her  brother's 
grammar,   which  just  at  this  moment  he  is  stoutly 
defending — conceiving    his    dignity    involved    in    the 
assertion    of     his    own    impeccability.     Now    whence 
came  the  little  girl's  error  and  its  correction  ]    Follow- 
ing blindly  the  general  analogy  of  the  language,  she 


EDUCATION.  187 

formed  her  plural  by  adding  an  s  to  the  singular  : 
afterwards  everybody  about  her  became  a  daily 
monitor — a  living  Frop'ia  qiue  maribus,  as  she  is 
in  her  turn  to  her  brother,  instructing  her  that  this 
particular  word  '  vian '  swerved,  as  to  this  one  par- 
ticular point,  from  the  general  analogy  of  the 
language.  But  the  result  is  just  as  inevitable  from 
daily  intercourse  with  Latin  books,  as  to  the  paiullel 
anomalies  in  that  language.  In  propoi-tion  as  any 
case  of  anomaly  could  escape  the  practical  regulation 
of  such  an  intercourse,  just  in  that  proportion  it  must 
be  a  rare  case,  and  less  important  to  be  known  :  what- 
soever the  futui'e  experience  will  be  most  like  to 
demand,  the  past  experience  will  be  most  likely  to 
have  furnished.  All  this  we  urge  not  against  the 
Eton  grammar  in  particular  :  on  the  contrary,  as 
grammars  go,  we  admire  the  Eton  grammar ;  *  and 
love  it  with  a  filial  partiality  from  early  associations 
(always  excepting,  however,  the  three  lead-mines  of 
the  Eton  grammar,  '  Projn-ia  quce  maribus,^  kc.  of 
which  it  is  not  extravagant  to  say,  that  the  author, 
though  possibly  a  good  sort  of  a  man  in  his  way,  has 
undoubtedly  caused  more  human  suil'ering  than  Nei'O, 
Robespierre,  or  any  otlier  enemy  of  the  hviuian  race). 
Our  opposition  is  to  the  general  principle,  which  lies 
at  the  root  of  such  treatises  as  the  three  we  have  been 
considering  :  it  will  be  observed  that,  making  a  prober 

*  Indeed  an  Etonian  must  in  consistency  condemn  either  the 
Latin  or  the  Greek  grammar  of  Eton.  For,  where  is  the  Greek 
'  Propria  qiuc  viaribas  ' — '  Qiue  genus  ' — and  '  As  in  pnvscnti '  ? 
Either  the  Greek  grammar  is  defective,  or  the  Latin  redundant. 
"We  are  surprised  that  it  has  never  struck  the  patrons  of  these 
three  beautiful  Id^dls,  that  all  the  anomalies  of  the  Greek 
language  are  left  to  be  collected  from  practice. 


188  DE    QUINCEY. 

allowance  for  the  smallness  of  the  print,  these  three 
bodies  of  absurd  anticipations  of  exceptions,  are  collec- 
tively about  equal  in  quantity,  and  virtually  for  the 
effort  to  the  memory  far  more  than  equal,  to  the  whole 
body  of  the  rules  contained  in  the  Accidence  and  the 
Syntax  :  i.  e.  that  which  exists  on  account  of  many 
thousand  cases  is  put  on  the  same  level  of  value  and 
burthen  to  the  memory,  as  that  which  exists  on 
account  of  itself  alone.  Here  lies  the  original  sin  of 
grammars,  the  mortal  taint  on  which  they  all  demand 
regeneration  :  whosoever  would  show  himself  a  great 
artist  in  the  profound  but  as  yet  infant  art  of  teach- 
ing, should  regai'd  all  arbitrary  taxes  upon  the 
memory  with  the  same  superstition  that  a  wise  law- 
giver should  regard  the  punishment  of  death  :  the 
lawgiver,  who  sets  out  with  little  knowledge  (and 
therefore  little  veneration)  of  human  nature,  is  per- 
petually invoking  the  thunders  of  the  law  to  com- 
pensate the  internal  weakness  of  his  own  laws :  and 
the  same  spirit  of  levity  disposes  inefficient  teachers 
to  put  in  motion  the  weightiest  machinery  of  the 
mind  for  the  most  trifling  purposes :  but  we  are 
convinced  that  this  law  should  be  engraven  on  the 
title  page  of  all  elementary  books — that  the  memory 
is  degraded,  if  it  be  called  in  to  deliver  any  individual 
fact,  or  any  number  of  individual  facts,  or  for  any 
less  purpose  than  that  of  delivering  a  comprehensive 
law,  by  means  of  Avhich  the  understanding  is  to 
jwoduce  the  individual  cases  of  knowledge  wanted. 
Wherever  exceptions  or  insulated  cases  are  noticed, 
except  in  notes,  which  are  not  designed  to  be  com- 
mitted to  memory,  this  rule  is  violated ;  and  the 
Scotch  expression  for  particularising,  viz.  condescend- 


EDUCATION.  189 

ing  npo7i,  becomes  applicable  in  a  literal  sense  :  when 
the  Eton  grammar,  e.  g.  notices  Deus  as  deviating  in 
the  vocative  case  from  the  general  law  for  that  de- 
clension, the  memory  is  summoned  to  an  unreasonable 
act  of  condescension — viz.  to  load  itself  almost  as 
heavily  for  one  particular  word  in  one  particular  case, 
as  it  had  done  by  the  whole  type  of  that  declension 
{i.  e.  the  implicit  law  for  all  words  contained  under 
it,  which  are  possibly  some  thousands).  But  how 
then  would  we  have  such  exceptions  learnt,  if  not  by 
an  act  of  the  memory  1  Pi'ecisely,  we  answer,  as  the 
meanings  of  all  the  words  in  the  language  are 
learned  :  how  are  thei/  learned  1  They  are  known, 
and  they  are  remembered  :  but  how  1  Not  by  any 
act  or  effort  of  the  memory  :  they  are  deposited  in  the 
memory  from  daily  intercourse  with  them  :  just  as 
the  daily  occurrences  of  our  lives  are  ref'orded  in  our 
memories  :  not  through  any  exertion  on  our  part,  or 
in  consequence  of  previous  determination  on  our  parts 
that  we  will  remember  them  :  on  the  contrary,  we 
take  no  pains  about  them,  and  often  would  willingly 
forget  them  :  but  they  stay  there  in  spite  of  us,  and 
are  pure  dejmsitwns,  settlings,  or  sediments,  with  or 
without  our  concurrence,  from  the  stream  of  our 
daily  experience. — lieturning  from  this  long  excursus 
on  arbitrary  taxations  of  the  memory  suggested  to  us 
by  the  mention  of  '  Propria  qu(e  maribus,'  which  the 
Experimentalist  objects  to  as  disgusting  to  children 
before  they  have  had  experience  of  the  cases  in  which 
it  furnishes  assistance  (but  which  we  have  objected 
to  as  in  any  case  barren  of  all  power  to  assist),  we 
resume  the  course  of  our  analysis.  We  left  the 
Experimentalist  insisting  on  the  benefit  of  directing 


rjO  DE    QUINCEY. 

the  studies  of  children  into  such  channels  as  that  the 
practical  uses  of  their  labours  may  become  apprehens- 
ible to  themselves — as  the  first  mode  of  producing  a 
love  of  knowledge.     In  some  cases  he  admits  that  the 
pupil    must    pass    through    'dark    defiles,'    confiding 
blindly  in  his  tutor's  '  assurance  that  he  will  at  last 
emerge  into  light :  '  but    still  contends  that  in  many 
cases  it  is  possible,  and  where  possible— right,  that 
he   should  *  catch  a  glimpse  of   the   promised   land.' 
Thus,  for  example,   to  construe   the   language  he  is 
learning — is  an  act   of  '  some    respectability    in    his 
eyes '  and  its  uses  apparent  :   meantime  the  uses  of 
the  grammar  are  not  so  apparent  until  experience  has 
brought  him  acquainted  with  tlie  real  cases  to  which 
it  applies.      On   this  account, — without  laying   aside 
the  grammar,  let  him  be  advanced  to  the  dignity  of 
actual  translation  upon  the  very  viinimum  of  gram- 
matical knowledge  which  will  admit  of  it.     Again,  in 
arithmetic,  it  is  the  received   practice  to  commence 
with    '  abstract    numbers : '    but,    instead    of   risking 
injury  to  the  child's  intellect  and  to  his  temper  by 
thus  calling  upon  him  to  add  together  '  long  rows  of 
figures  '  to  which  no  meaning  is  attached,  he  is  taught 
*  to  calculate  all  the  various    little   problems   which 
may  be  constructed  respecting  his  tops  and  marbles, 
their  price,  and  their  comparative  value.'     Here  the 
Experimentalist  turns  aside  for  about  a  page  (from 
'while,'  p.  101 — to  'practicable,'  p.  102)  to  'acknow- 
ledge   his    obligations    to     what     is    called     Mental 
Arithmetic — that  is,  calculation  without  the  employ- 
ment of  written  symbols.'     Jedediah  Buxton's  preter- 
natural powers  in  this  way  have  been  long  published 
to    the    world,   and    may   now   be  found  recorded  in 


EDUCATION.  191 

Encyclopaedias  :  the  Experimentalist  refers  also  to  the 
more  recent  cases  of  Porson  and  the  American  youth 
Zerah  Colborn  :  amongst  his  own  pupils  it  appears 
(p.  54)  that  this  exercise  is  practised  in  the  morning 
twilight,  which  for  any  other  study  would  not  furnish 
sufficient  light  :  he  does  not  pretend  to  any  very 
splendid  marvels  :  but  the  following  facts,  previously 
recited  at  pp.  16  and  17,  he  thinks  may  astonish 
*  those  who  have  not  estimated  the  combined  power 
of  youth,  ardour,  and  practice.'  The  lower  classes 
calculate,  purely  by  the  mind  without  any  help  from 
pen  or  pencil,,  questions  respecting  interest ;  determine 
whether  a  given  year  be  bissextile  or  not,  &c.  &c. 
The  upper  classes  determine  the  age  of  the  moon  at 
any  given  time,  the  day  of  the  week  which  coi'responds 
with  any  day  of  any  month,  and  year,  and  Easter 
Sunday  for  a  given  year.  They  will  square  any 
number  not  exceeding  a  thousand,  extract  the  square 
root  of  a  number  of  not  more  than  five  places, 
determine  the  space  thi-ough  which  a  body  falls  in  a 
given  time,  the  circumference  and  areas  of  cix'cles 
from  their  diameters,  and  solve  many  problems  in 
mensuration  :  they  practise  also  Mental  Algebra,  ikc. 
In  mental,  no  less  than  in  written.  Arithmetic,  '  by 
assimilating  the  questions  to  those  which  actually 
occur  in  the  transactions  of  life,'  the  pupil  is  made 
sensible  that  he  is  rising  into  the  usefulness  and  re- 
spectability of  real  business.  The  imitative  principle 
of  man  is  thus  made  to  blend  with  the  motive  derived 
from  the  sense  of  utility.  The  same  blended  feelings, 
combined  with  the  pleasurable  influences  of  open  air, 
are  relied  ujion  for  creating  the  love  of  knowledge  in 
the  practice  of  surveying.     In  this  operation  so  large 


192  DE    QUINCEY. 

an  aggregate  of  .subsidiary  knowledge  is  demanded, — • 
of  arithmetic,  for  instance — of  mensuration — of  trigo- 
nometry, together  with  '  the  manual  facility  of  con- 
structing maps  and  plans,'  that  a  sudden  revelation  is 
made  to  the  pupils  of  the  uses  and  indispensableness 
of  many  previous  studies  which  hitherto  they  had 
imperfectly  appreciated  ;  they  also  '  exercise  their 
discretion  in  choosing  points  of  observation ;  they 
learn  expertness  in  the  use,  and  care  in  the  preserva- 
tion of  instruments  :  and,  above  all, — -from  this  feel- 
ing that  they  are  really  at  work,  they  acquire  that 
sobriety  and  steadiness  of  conduct  in  which  the  elder 
school-boy  is  so  often  inferior  to  his  less  fortunate 
neighbour,  who  has  been  removed  at  an  early  age 
to  the  accompting-house.' — The  value  of  the  sense  of 
utility  tlie  Experimentalist  brings  home  forcibly  to 
every  reader's  recollections,  by  reminding  him  of  the 
many  cases  in  which  a  sudden  desire  for  self  education 
breaks  out  in  a  few  months  after  the  close  of  an 
inefficient  education  :  *  and  what,'  he  asks,  '  produces 
the  change  1  The  experience,  however  short,  of  the 
utility  of  acquisitions,  which  were  perhaps  lately 
despised.'  Better  then  '  to  spare  the  future  man 
many  moments  of  painful  retrospection,'  by  educing 
this  sense  of  utility,  '  while  the  time  and  opportunity 
of  improvement  remain  unimpaired.'  Finally,  the 
sense  of  utility  is  connected  with  the  peculiar  exercises 
in  composition;  'a  department  of  education  which  we 
confess '  (says  the  Experimentalist)  '  has  often  caused 
us  considerable  uuea,siness  ; '  an  uneasiness  which  we, 
on  our  part,  look  upon  as  groundless.  For  starting 
ourselves  from  the  same  point  with  the  Experiment- 
alist  and    the    authority    he   alleges — viz.    that    the 


EDUCATION.  193 

matter  of  a  good  theme  or  essay  altogether  transcends 
the  reflective  powers  and  the  opportunities  for  ob- 
serving of  a  raw  school-boy, — we  yet  come  to  a  very 
different  practical  conclusion.  The  act  of  composition 
cannot,  it  is  true,  create  thoughts  in  a  boy's  head 
unless  they  exist  previously.  On  this  consideration, 
let  all  questions  of  general  speculation  be  dismissed 
from  school  exercises  :  especially  questions  of  moral 
speculation,  which  usually  furnish  the  thesis  of  a 
school-boy's  essay  :  let  us  have  no  more  themes  on 
Justice — on  Ambition — on  Benevolence — on  the  Love 
of  Fame,  (fee.  :  for  all  theses  such  as  these,  which  treat 
moral  qualities  as  pure  abstractions,  are  stripped  of 
their  human  interest  :  and  few  adults  even  could 
write  endurably  upon  such  subjects  in  such  a  shape  ; 
though  many  might  have  written  very  pleasingly  and 
judiciously  upon  a  moral  case — i.  e.  on  a  moral  ques- 
tion in  concreto.  Grant  that  a  school-boy  has  no 
independent  thoughts  of  any  value ;  yet  every  boy 
has  thoughts  dependent  upon  what  he  has  read — 
thoughts  involved  in  it — thoughts  derived  from  it  : 
but  these  he  will  (c(eteris  paribus)  be  moi-e  or  less 
able  to  express,  as  he  has  been  more  or  less  accustomed 
to  express  them.  The  uuevolved  thoughts  which  pass 
through  the  youngest — the  rudest — the  most  inex- 
perienced brain,  are  innumerable ;  not  detached — 
voluntary  thoughts,  but  thoughts  inherent  in  what  is 
seen,  talked  of,  experienced,  or  read  of.  To  evolve 
these,  to  make  them  apprehensible  by  others,  and 
ofteu  even  to  bring  them  within  their  own  conscious- 
ness, is  very  difficult  to  most  people ;  and  at  times  to 
all  people  :  and  the  power,  by  which  this  difficulty  is 
conquered,  admits  of  endless  culture  :  and,  amongst 
VOL.  I.  N 


194  DE    QUINCEY. 

the  modes  of  culture,  is  that  of  wi^itten  composition. 
The  true  value  of  this  exercise  lies  in  the  necessity 
which  it  imposes  of  forming  distinct  ideas — of  con- 
necting them — of  disposing  them  into  such  an  arrange- 
ment as  that  they  can  be  connected — of  clothing  them 
in  words — and  many  more  acts  of  the  mind  :  both 
analytic  and  synthetic.  All  that  is  necessary  is — to 
determine  for  the  young  composer  his  choice  of 
matter  :  require  him  therefore  to  narrate  an  interest- 
ing story  which  he  has  formerly  read  ;  to  rehearse  the 
most  interesting  particulars  of  a  day's  excursion  :  in 
the  case  of  more  advanced  students,  let  them  read  one 
of  the  English  state  trials,  where  the  evidence  is  of  a 
complex  character  (as  the  trials  on  Titvis  Oates's  plot), 
or  a  critical  dissertation  on  some  interesting  question, 
or  anything  in  short  which  admits  of  analysis — of 
abstraction — of  expansion — or  exhibition  in  an  altered 
shape.  Subjects  for  all  this  are  innumerable ;  and, 
according  to  the  selection  made,  more  or  less  oppor- 
tunity is  given  for  collecting  valuable  knowledge  : 
but  this  purpose  is  collateral  to  the  one  we  are  speak- 
ing of  :  the  direct  purpose  is  to  exercise  the  mind  in 
unravelling  its  own  thoughts,  which  else  lie  huddled 
and  tangled  together  in  a  state  unfit  for  vise,  and  but 
dimly  developed  to  the  possessor's  own  consciousness. 
— The  three  other  modes  of  producing  a  love  of 
knowledge,  which  the  Experimentalist  relies  on,  viz 
the  proportioning  the  difficulties  to  the  capacity  of 
tne  learner,  the  pleasure  of  sviccess,  and  the  communi- 
cation of  clear,  vivid,  and  accurate  conceptions,  are 
treated  with  good  sense — but  not  with  any  great 
originality :  the  last  indeed  (to  speak  scholastically) 
contains  the  other  three  enmienter  :  for  he,  who  has 


EDUCATION.  195 

once  arrived  at  clear  conceptions  in  relation  to  the 
various  objects  of  his  study,  will  not  fail  to  generate 
for  himself  the  pleasure  of  success  ;  and  so  of  the  rest. 
But  the  power  of  communicating  '  accurate  concep- 
tions '  involves  so  many  other  powers,  that  it  is  in 
strictness  but  another  name  for  the  faculty  of  teach- 
ing in  general.  We  fully  agree  with  the  Experiment- 
alist (at  p.  118),  that  the  tutor  would  do  well  'to 
provide  himself  with  the  various  weights  commonly 
spoken  of,  and  the  measui'es  of  content  and  of  length  ; 
to  portion  off  upon  his  play-ground  a  land-chain,  a 
rood,'  tkj.  to  furnish  '  maps '  tracing  '  the  routes  of 
armies  ; '  '  plates  exhibiting  the  costumes  '  of  different 
nations  :  and  more  especially  we  agree  with  him  (at 
p.  135)  that  in  teaching  the  classics  the  tutor  should 
have  at  hand  '  plates  or  drawings  of  ships,  temples, 
houses,  altars,  domestic  and  sacred  utensils,  robes,  and 
of  every  object  of  which  they  are  likely  to  read.'  *  It 
is,'  as  he  says,  '  impossible  to  calculate  the  injury 
which  the  minds  of  children  suffer  from  the  habit  of 
receiving  imperfect  ideas  : '  and  it  is  discreditable  in 
the  highest  degree  to  the  majority  of  good  classical 
scholars  that  they  have  no  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
Roman  calendar,  and  no  knowledge  at  all  of  the 
classical  coinage,  &c.  :  not  one  out  of  every  twenty 
scholars  can  state  the  relation  of  the  sesterfius  to  the 
denarius,  of  the  Roman  denarius  to  the  Attic  drachma, 
or  express  any  of  them  in  English  money.  All  such 
defects  are  weighty :  but  they  are  not  adequate 
illustrations  of  the  injury  which  arises  from  in- 
accurate ideas  in  its  most  important  shape.  It  is  a 
subject  however  which  we  have  here  no  room  to 
enlarge  upon. 

N   2 


196  DE    QUINCET. 

Rewards  and  Punishments. — It  has  already  been 
mentioned  that  corporal  punishments  are  entirely 
abolished  ;  *  and  upon  the  same  principle  all  such 
disgrace  as  '  would  destroy  self-respect.'  '  Expulsion 
even  has  been  resorted  to,  rather  than  a  boy  should 
be  submitted  to  treatment  which  might  lead  himself 
and  his  school-fellows  to  forget  that  he  was  a  gentle- 
man.' In  this  we  think  the  Experimentalist  very 
wise  :  and  precisely  upon  this  ground  it  was  that  Mr. 
Coleridge  in  his  lectures  at  the  Royal  Institution 
attacked  Mr.  Lancaster's  system,  which  deviated 
from  the  Madras  system  chiefly  in  the  complexity 
of  the  details,  and  by  pressing  so  cruelly  in  its 
punishments  upon  the  principle  of  shame.  *  Public 
disgrace '  (as  the  Experimentalist  alleges,  p.  83)  *  is 
painful  exactly  in  proportion  to  the  good  feeling  of 
the  offender  :  '  and  thus  the  good  are  more  heavily 
punished  than  the  bad.  Confinement,  and  certain 
disabilities,  are  the  severest  punishments  :  but  the 
former  is  '  as  rare  as  possible ;  both  because  it  is 
attended  with  unavoidable  disgrace '  (bvit  what 
punishment  is  wholly  free  from  this  objection  1)  '  and 
because,  unlike  labour,  it  is  pain  without  any  utility ' 

*  On  this  point  there  is  however  an  exception  made,  which 
amnses  us  not  a  little.  '  In  a  few  instances,'  says  the  Experi- 
mentalist, *it  has  been  found  or  supposed  necessary  to  resent 
insolence  by  a  blow  :  but  this  may  be  ratlier  called  an  assertion 
of  private  right,  than  an  official  punishment.  In  these  cases  a 
single  blow  has  almost  always  been  found  sufficient,  even  the 
rarity  of  tlie  infliction  rendering  severity  unnecessary.'  He 
insists  therefore  that  this  punishment  (which,  we  cannot  but 
think,  might  have  been  commuted  for  a  long  imprisonment) 
shall  not  be  called  a  punishment,  nor  entered  on  the  public 
records  as  such  :  in  which  case  however  it  becomes  a  private 
'  turn-up,'  as  the  boxers  call  it,  between  the  boy  and  his  tutor. 


EDUCATION.  197 

(p.  183).     The  ordinary  punishments  therefore  consist 
in    the    forfeiture    of    rewards,    which   are    certain 
counters  obtained  by  various  kinds  of  merit.     These 
are  of  two  cleLsaes,  pe7ial  (so  called  from  being  received 
as   forfeits)   and   premial,   which    are   obtained  by  a 
higher    degree    of    merit,    and    have    higher    powers 
attached   to  them,     Premial    counters  will  purchase 
holidays,  and  will  also  purchase  7'ank  (which  on  this 
system  is  of  great  importance).     A  conflict  is  thus 
created  between  pleasure  and  ambition,  which  gener- 
ally terminates   in   favour   of  the  latter  :  '  a  boy  of 
fourteen,   although   constantly  in    the    possession    of 
marks   suflicient  to   obtain  a  holiday  per  week,  has 
bought    but    three-quarters    of    a    day's    relaxation 
during  the  whole  of   the   last  year.     The  same   boy 
purchased  his  place  on  the  list  by  a  sacrifice  of  marks 
sufficient  to  have  obtained  for  him  twenty-six  half- 
holidays.'     The   purchase   of  rank,  the    reader  must 
remember,  is  no  way  objectionable — considei'ing  the 
means  by  which  the  purchase-money  is  obtained.    One 
chief  means  is  by  study  during  the  hours  of  leisure — 
i.  e.  by  voluntary  labour :  this  is  treated  of  (rather  out 
of  its  place)  in  Chap.  VII.,  which  ought  to  be  con- 
sidered as  belonging  to  the  first  part  of  the  work,  viz. 
to  the  exposition  of  the  system.     Voluntary  labour 
took  its  rise  from  the  necessity  of  furnishing  those 
boys,  who  had  no  chance  of  obtaining  rank  through 
their  talents,  with  some  other  means  of  distinguishing 
themselves  :  this  is  accomplished  in  two  modes  :  first, 
by  giving  rewards  for  industry  exerted  out  of  school 
hours,  and    receiving  these  rewards   as   the  price  of 
rank ;    making   no    other    stipulation    than    one,    in 
addition  to  its  being  '  tolerably  well  executed ' — viz. 


198  DE    QUINCEY. 

that  it  shall  be  in  a  state  of  completion.  The 
Experimentalist  comments  justly  at  p.  187,  ou  '  the 
mental  dissipation  in  which  persons  of  talent  often 
indulge  '  as  being  '  destructive  beyond  what  can  readily 
be  imagined  '  and  as  leading  to  '  a  life  of  shreds  and 
patches.'  '  We  take  care '  (says  he)  '  to  reward  no 
boy  for  fragments,  whatever  may  be  their  excellence. 
We  know  nothing  of  his  exertions  until  they  come 
before  us  in  a  state  of  completion.'  Hence,  besides 
gaining  the  '  habit  of  finishing '  in  early  youth,  the 
boy  has  an  interest  also  in  gaining  the  habit  of 
measuring  his  own  powers  :  for  he  knows  '  that  he 
can  receive  neither  fame  nor  profit  by  instalments ; 
and  therefore  '  undertakes  nothing  which  he  has  not 
a  rational  hope  of  accomplishing.'  *  A  second  mode  of 
preventing  rank  from  being  monopolised  by  talents 
is  by  flinging  the  school  into  various  arrangements, 
one  of  which  is  founded  on  '  propriety  of  manners  and 
general  good  conduct.' 

We  have  thus  gone  through  a  pretty  full  analysis, 
and  a  very  accurate  one,  of  the  new  system  as 
contained  in  the  three  first  chapters.  Of  the  five 
miscellaneous  chapters,  the  seventh  or  last  but  one 
(on  voluntary  labour),  has  been  interwoven  with  our 
analysis  ;  and  the  eighth,  which  contains  a  comparison 
of  public  and  private  education,  we  do  not  purpose  to 

*  The  details  of  the  system  in  regard  to  the  penal  and  premial 
counters  may  be  fonnd  from  pp.  23  to  29.  We  have  no  room  to 
extract  them  :  one  remark  only  we  must  make — that  we  do  not 
see  how  it  is  possible  to  ascribe  any  peculiar  and  incommunicable 
privileges  to  the  premial  as  opposed  to  the  penal  counters,  when 
it  appears  that  they  may  be  exchanged  for  each  other  '  at  an 
established  rate.' 


EDUCATION.  199 

notice  ;  the  question  is  very  sensibly  discussed  ;  but 
it  is  useless  to  discuss  any  question  like  this,  which  is 
a  difficult  problem  only  because  it  is  an  vinlimited 
problem.  Let  the  parent  satisfy  himself  about  tlie 
object  he  has  in  view  for  his  child,  and  let  him 
consider  the  particular  means  w^hich  he  has  at  his 
disposal  for  secui-ing  a  good  private  education,  and  he 
may  then  determine  it  for  himself.  As  far  as  the 
attainment  of  knowledge  is  concerned, — it  is  always 
possible  to  secure  a  good  public  education,  and  not 
always  possible  to  secure  a  good  private  one.  Where 
either  is  possible  indifferently,  the  comparison  will 
proceed  upon  more  equal  grounds  :  and  inquiry  may 
then  be  made  about  the  child's  destination  in  future 
life  :  for  many  destinations  a  public  education  being 
much  more  eligible  than  for  others.  Under  a  perfect 
indetermination  of  everything  relating  to  the  child 
— the  question  is  as  indeterminable  as — whether  it  is 
better  to  go  to  the  Bank  through  Holborn  or  through 
the  Strand  :  the  particular  case  being  given,  it  may 
then  be  possible  to  answer  the  question  ;  previously 

it  is  impossible. Three  chapters  therefore  remain, 

viz. — Chap.  IV.  on  Languages;  Chap.  Y.  on  Elocution  ; 
and  Chap.  VI.  on  Penmanship. 

Chap.  IV.  Oil  the  best  method  of  acquiring  Lan- 
guages.— The  Experimentalist  had  occasion  to  observe 
'  that,  in  the  AVelsh  towns  which  are  frequented  by 
the  English,  even  the  children  speak  both  languages 
with  fluency  :  '  this  fact,  contrasted  with  the  labour 
and  pain  entailed  upon  the  boy  who  is  learning  Latin 
(to  say  nothing  of  the  eventual  disgust  to  literature 
which  is  too  often  the  remote  consequence),  and  the 
drudgery  entailed  upon  the  master  who  teaches  Latin, 


200  DE    QUIXCEY. 

— and  fortified  by  the  consideration,  that  in  the 
former  instance  the  chilJ  learns  to  speak  a  new 
hmguage,  but  in  the  latter  only  to  read  it, — first 
drew  his  attention  to  the  natural  mode  of  learning 
languages,  i.  e.  learning  them  fi-om  daily  use.  This 
mode  never  fails  with  living  languages  :  but  how  is 
it  to  be  applied  to  dead  languages  ]  The  Experiment- 
alist retorts  by  asking  what  is  essential  to  this  mode  \ 
Partly  the  necessity  which  the  pupil  is  laid  under  of 
using  the  language  daily  for  the  common  intercourse 
of  life,  and  partly  his  hearing  it  spoken  by  those  who 
thoroughly  understand  it.  '  Stimulus  to  exertion 
then,  and  good  models,  are  the  great  advantages  of 
this  mode  of  instruction  : '  and  these,  he  thinks,  are 
secured  even  for  a  dead  language  by  his  system  :  the 
first  by  the  motives  to  exertion  which  have  already 
been  unfolded  ;  and  the  second  by  the  acting  of  Latin 
dramas  (which  had  been  previously  noticed  in  his 
Exposition  of  the  system).  But  a  third  imitation  of 
the  natural  method  he  places  in  the  use  of  transla- 
tions, *  which  present  the  student  Avith  a  dictionary 
both  of  words  and  phrases  arranged  in  the  order  in 
which  he  wants  them,'  and  in  an  abstinence  from  all 
use  of  the  grammar,  until  the  learner  himself  shall 
come  to  feel  the  want  of  it ;  i.  e.  using  it  with  refer- 
ence to  an  experience  ali-eady  accumulated,  and  not 
as  an  anticipation  of  an  experience  yet  to  come.  Tlie 
ordinary  objection  to  the  use  of  translations — that 
they  produce  indolent  habits,  he  answers  thus  :  '  We 
teach  by  the  process  of  construing ;  and  therefore, 
even  with  the  translation  before  him,  the  scholar  will 
have  a  task  to  perform  in  matching  the  English, 
word  by  word,  with  the  language  which  he  is  learn- 


EDUCATION.  201 

iug.'  For  this  natural  method  of  learning  languages 
he  alleges  the  authority  of  Locke,  of  Ascham,  and  of 
Pestalozzi.  The  best  method,  with  those  who  have 
advanced  to  some  degree  of  proficiency,  he  considei's 
that  of  double  translations — i.  e.  a  translation  first  of 
all  into  the  mother  tongue  of  the  learner,  and  a  re- 
translation  of  this  translation  back  into  the  language 
of  the  original.  These,  with  the  help  of  extempor- 
aneous construing,  i.  e.  construing  any  passage  at 
random  with  the  assistance  of  a  master  who  supplies 
the  meaning  of  the  unknown  words  as  they  arise  (a 
method  practised,  it  seems,  by  Le  Febvre  the  father 
of  Madame  Dacier,  by  others  before  his  time,  and  by 
Condillac  since) — compose  the  chief  machinery  which 
be  employs  for  the  communication  of  dead  languages. 
Chap.  V.  On  Elocution. — In  this  chapter  there  is 
not  much  which  is  very  important.  To  read  well,  the 
Experimentalist  alleges,  presupposes  so  much  various 
knowledge,  especially  of  that  kind  which  is  best 
acquired  by  private  reading,  and  therefore  most  spares 
the  labour  of  the  tutor,  that  it  ought  reasonably  to 
bestow  high  rank  in  the  school.  Private  reading  is 
most  favourable  to  the  rapid  collection  of  an  author's 
meaning  :  but  for  reading  well — this  is  not  sufficient  : 
two  great  constituents  of  that  art  remain  to  be 
acquired — Enunciation  and  Inflection.  These  are 
best  learned  by  Recitation.  Thus  far  there  is  no 
great  novelty :  the  most  interesting  part  of  the 
chai  ter  is  what  relates  to  Stammering.  This  defect 
is  held  by  the  Experimentalist  to  result  from  inatten- 
tion to  rhythmus  :  so  much  he  thinks  has  been 
proved  by  Mr.  Thelwall.  Whatsoever  therefore 
compels  the  pupil  to  au  efficient  perception  of  time 


202  DE    QUINCEY. 

and  measure,  as  for  example,  marching  and  music 
(p.  32),  he  resorts  to  for  its  correction.  Stammerers, 
he  observes,  can  all  sing  :  let  them  be  taught  to  sing 
therefore,  if  not  otherwise  corrigible  :  and  from  this 
let  them  descend  to  recitative :  then  to  the  recitation 
of  verses  distinguished  by  the  simplicity  of  their 
rhythmus,  marching  at  the  same  time  and  marking 
the  accented  syllables  by  the  tread  of  the  foot ;  from 
this  to  the  recitation  of  more  difficult  verses ;  from 
that  to  measured  prose ;  thence  to  ordinary  prose  ; 
and  lastly  to  narrative  and  dialogue. 

Chap.  VI.  Of  Penmanship. — This  is  a  subject  on 
which  we  profess  no  experience  which  could  warrant 
us  in  contradicting  a  writer  who  should  rest  his  inno- 
vations solely  upon  that  ground  :  but  the  writer 
before  us  does  not  i-ely  on  the  practical  issue  of  his 
own  experiment  (he  does  not  even  tell  us  what  that 
issue  was),  but  on  certain  a  p^-iori  arguments,  which 
we  conceive  to  be  ill-reasoned.  The  amount  of  the 
chapter  is  this — that  to  write  a  good  running  hand  is 
the  main  object  to  be  aimed  at  in  the  art  of  cali- 
graphy  :  we  will  go  farther,  and  concede  that  it  is  the 
sole  object,  unless  where  the  pupil  is  educated  for  a 
writing-master.  Tiius  far  we  are  agreed  ;  and  the 
question  is — as  to  the  best  means  of  attaining  this 
object.  On  which  question  the  plan  here  proposed 
differs  from  those  in  use  by  the  very  natural  error — 
that  what  is  admitted  to  be  the  ultimate  object,  this 
plan  would  make  the  immediate  object.  The  avithor 
starts  from  a  false  theory  of  the  practice  amongst 
writing-masters  :  in  order  that  their  pupils  may  write 
small  and  running  hands  well,  writing-masters  (as  is 
well-known)  begin    by  exacting    from    them    a    long 


EDUCATION.  203 

praxis  in  large  hands.  But  the  rationale  of  this 
praxis  escapes  the  Experimentalist :  the  large  hand 
and  the  small  hand  stand  related  to  each  other,  in 
the  estimate  of  the  masters,  as  a  means  to  an  end  ; 
whereas  the  Experimentalist  supposes  them  to  be 
viewed  in  the  relation  simply  of  two  co-ordinate  or 
collateral  ends  :  on  which  false  presumption  he 
grounds  what  would  on  his  own  view  be  a  very  sound 
advice ;  for  justly  conceiving  that  the  small  hand  is  of 
incomparably  more  use  in  life,  he  argues  in  effect 
thus  :  let  us  communicate  the  main  object,  and  then 
(if  he  has  leisure  and  taste  for  it)  let  the  pupil  direct 
his  attention  to  the  lower  object  :  '  when  the  running 
hand  is  accomplished,'  says  he,  '  the  pupil  may  (if  it 
be  thought  necessary)  learn  to  write  the  larger  hands 
according  to  the  received  models.'  When  it  is  acquired  ! 
'  Aye,  but  in  order  that  it  7nai/  be  acquired,' — the 
writing-master  will  reply,  '  I  must  first  teach  the 
larger  hands.'  As  well  might  the  professor  of  dancing 
hold  out  as  a  tempting  innovation  to  the  public — I 
teach  the  actvial  dances,  the  true  practical  synthesis 
of  the  steps  and  movements,  as  it  is  in  fact  demanded 
by  the  usage  of  the  ball-room  :  let  others  teach  the 
analytic  elements  of  the  art — the  mere  useless  steps 
— to  those  who  have  time  to  waste  on  superfluities. 
In  either  art  (as  in  many  others)  that,  which  is  first 
(or  rather  sole)  in  order  of  importance,  is  last  in  the 
order  of  attainment  :  as  an  object  j[>er  se,  the  larger 
hand  is  not  wanted  at  all,  either  before  or  after  the 
running  hand :  if  it  does  really  contribute  nothing  to 
the  more  accurate  formation  of  the  letters,  by  com- 
pelling the  pupil  to  exliibit  his  aberx-ations  from  the 
ideal  letter  more  clearly  because  on  a  scale  of  greater 


204  DE   QUINCEY.    • 

magnitude  (which  yet  in  the  second  sentence  of  this 
chapter  our  Experimentalist  himself  admits),  then  let 
it  be  abandoned  at  once  :  for  not  doing  this  service, 
it  does  nothing  at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  if  this  be 
its  specific  service,  then  it  is  clear  that,  being  no 
object  per  se,  but  simply  a  means  to  an  object,  it 
must  have  precedency  in  the  order  of  communication. 
And  the  innovation  of  our  Experimentalist  is  so  far 
(in  the  literal  sense  of  that, word)  a  j^'^P^sterous  in- 
version of  the  old  usa^^e  :  and  this  beincf  the  chief 
principle  of  his  '  plan '  we  desire  to  know  no  more  of 
it;  and  were  not  sorry  that  (p.  178)  we  found  him 
declining  '  to  enter  into  a  detail  of  it.' — The  business 
of  the  chapter  being  finished  however,  there  yet 
remains  some  little  matter  of  curiosity.  1,  The  Ex- 
perimentalist affirms  that  '  Langford's  copper-plate 
copies,  or  indeed  any  other  which  he  has  seen,  fail '  if 
tried  by  a  certain  test  :  what  test  1  Why  this  :  that 
'  the  large  hand  seen  through  a  diminishing  glass, 
ought  to  be  reduced  into  the  cun-ent  hand ;  and  the 
current  hand,  magnified,  ought  to  swell  into  a  large 
hand.'  Whereas,  on  the  contrary,  'the  large  hands 
reduced  appear  very  stiff  and  cramped;  and  the  magni- 
fied running  hand ' — '  appears  little  better  than  a 
scrawl.'  Now  to  vis  the  result  appears  in  a  different 
light.  It  is  true  that  the  large  hands  reduced  do  not 
appear  good  running  hands  according  to  the  standard 
derived  from  the  actual  practice  of  the  woidd  :  but 
why  ]  Simply  because  they  are  too  good  :  i.  e.  they  are 
ideals  and  in  fact  ai^e  meant  to  be  so ;  and  have  no- 
thing characteristic :  they  ai-e  purely  ^eweric  hands,  and 
therefore  want  individualisation:  they  are  abstrac- 
tions ;  but  to  affect  us  pleasurably,   they  should  be 


EDUCATION.  205 

concivte  expressions  of  some  human  qualities,  moral  or 
intellectual.     Perfect  features  in    a   human  face  ar- 
ranged with  perfect  symmetry,  affect  us  not  at  all,  as 
is  well  known,  where  there  is  nothing  characteristic  ; 
the  latency  of  the  individual  in  tlie  generic,  and  of  the 
generic  in  the  individual,  is  that  which  gives  to  each 
its   power  over   our  human   sensibilities.     And    this 
holds  of  caligraphy  no   less   than  other  arts.     And 
ihat  is  the  most  perfect  hand-writing  which  unites  the 
minimum  of  deviation   fiom    the   ideal    standard    of 
beauty  (as  to  the  foi-m  and  nexus  of  the  letters)  with 
the  maximum  of  characteristic   expression.      It    has 
long  been  practically  felt,  and  even  expressly  affirmed 
(in  some  instances  even  expanded  into  a  distinct  art 
and  pi^ofessed  as  such),  that  it  is  possible  to  determine 
the   human   intellectual   character  as  to   some  of  its 
features   from    the  hand-writing.     Books  even   have 
been  wi-itten  on  this  art,  as  e.  g.  the  Ideograplda,  or 
art   of   knowing   the   characters    of    men   from   their 
hand-writings,   by    Aldorisius  :    and,  though    this    in 
common   with   all    other   modes    of  2^^i!/siog)io}n7/,    as 
craniology,    Lavaterianism    (usually    called     physiog- 
nomy), cfec.  &c.  has  laboured  under  the  reproach   of 
fancifulness, — yet    we    ought   not    to   attribute    this 
wholly  to  the  groundlessness  of  the  art  as  a  possible 
art — but  to  these  two  causes  ;  partly  to  the  precipita- 
tion and  imperfect  psychology  of  the  professoi-s ;  who, 
like  the  craniologists,  have   been  over-ready   to    de- 
termine the  indicantia  before  they  had  settled  accord" 
ing  to  any  tolerable  theory  the  indicanda ;  i.  e.  have 
settled  what  A,  what  B,  what  C,  shall  indicate,  before 
they  have   inquired   what  it    was    presumable    iipon 
any  systematic  development  of  human  nature  would 


206  DE    QUINCEY. 

have  a  right  to  he  indicated ;  and  thus  have  assigned 
an  external  characteristic  to  a  faculty  of  the  third 
order — suppose  (or  perhaps  a  mere  accidental  effect 
of  a  faculty  or  a  mere  imaginary  faculty),  whilst  a 
primary  faculty  went  without  any  expression  at  all : 
— partly,  I  say,  to  this  cause  which  is  obviously  not 
merely  a  subjective  but  also  an  accidental  cause  ;  and 
partly  also  to  the  following  cause,  which  is  objective 
{%.  e.  seated  in  the  inherent  imperfections  of  the  art  it- 
self, and  not  removeable  therefore  by  any  future 
improvements  to  be  anticipated  from  a  more  matured 
psychology)  ;  viz.  that  the  human  mind  transcends 
or  overflows  the  gamut  or  scale  of  the  art ;  in  other 
words,  that  the  qualities — intellectual  or  moral,  which 
ought  to  be  expressed,  are  far  more  in  number  than 
the  alphabet  of  signs  or  expressions  by  which  they  are 
to  be  enunciated.  Hence  it  follows  as  an  inevitable 
dilemma,  that  many  qualities  must  go  unrepresented  ; 
or  else  be  represented  by  signs  common  to  them  with 
otlier  qualities  :  in  the  first  of  which  cases  we  have 
an  art  imperfect  from  defect,  in  the  other  case  im- 
perfect from  equivocal  language.  Thus,  for  example, 
determination  of  character  is  built  in  some  cases  upon 
mere  energy  of  the  will  (a  moral  cause) ;  and  again 
in  other  cases  upon  capaciousness  of  judgment  and 
freedom  fi-om  all  logical  perplexity  (an  intellectual 
cause).  Yet  it  is  possible  that  either  cause  will 
modify  the  hand-writing  in  the  same  way. 

From  the  long  analysis  which  we  have  thus  given 
of  the  book  recording  this  new  system  of  education, 
it  is  sufiiciently  evident  that  we  think  very  highly  of 
it.    In  the  hands  of  its  founder  we  are  convinced  that 


EDUCATION.  207 

it  is  calculated  to  work  wonders  ;  and  so  strong  is 
the  impression  which  his  book  conveys,  that  he  is  not 
only  a  man  of  very  extraordinary  talents  for  the 
improvement  of  the  science  of  education,  but  also  a 
very  conscientious  man — that,  for  our  own  parts,  we 
should  confide  a  child  to  his  care  with  that  spirit  of 
perfect  confidence  which  he  has  himself  described  at 
p.  74.  There  is  an  air  of  gentlemanly  feeling  spread 
over  the  book  which  tends  still  further  to  recommend 
the  author.  Meantime  two  questions  arise  on  the 
system, — first,  is  it  a  good  system  1  which  we  have 
answered  : — secondly,  is  it  a  system  adapted  for 
general  diffusion  1  This  question  we  dare  not  answer 
in  the  afiirmative,  unless  we  could  ensure  the  talents 
and  energy  of  the  original  inventor  in  every  other 
superintendent  of  this  system. — In  this  we  may  be 
wrong  :  but  at  all  events,  it  ought  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  any  deduction  from  the  merits  of  the 
author — as  a  very  original  thinker  on  the  science  of 
education,  that  his  system  is  not  (like  the  Madras 
system)  independent  of  the  teacher's  ability,  and 
therefore  not  vmconditionally  applicable. — Upon  some 
future  occasion  we  shall  perhaps  take  an  opportunity 
of  stating  what  is  in  our  opinion  the  great  desideratum 
which  is  still  to  be  supplied  in  the  art  of  education 
considered  simply  in  its  inteUectucd  purposes — viz.  the 
communication  of  knowledge,  .ind  the  development  of 
the  intellectual  faculties  :  purposes  which  have  not 
been  as  yet  treated  in  sufficient  insulation  from  the 
moral  purposes.  For  the  present  we  shall  conclude 
by  recommending  to  the  notice  of  the  Experimentalist 
the  German  writers  on  education.  Basedow,  who 
naturalised  Rousseau    in    Germany,    was    the    first 


208  DE    QUINCEY. 

author  who  called  the  attention  of  the  German  pul)lic 
to  this  important  subject.  Unfortunately  Basedow 
had  a  silly  ambition  of  being  reputed  an  infidel,  and 
thus  created  a  great  obstacle  to  his  own  success  :  he 
Avas  also  in  many  other  respects  a  sciolist  and  a  trifler  : 
but,  since  his  time,  the  subject  has  been  much  culti- 
vated in  Germany  :  '  Paedogogic  '  journals  even,  have 
been  published  periodically,  like  literary  or  philosophic 
journals  :  and,  as  might  be  anticipated  from  that  love 
of  children  which  so  honourably  distinguishes  the 
Germans  as  a  people,  not  without  very  considerable 
success. 


CASE  of;  appeal. 


Our  little  Coui'ts  of  Justice  not  unfrequently 
furnish  cases  of  considerable  interest ;  and  we  are 
always  willing  to  make  the  resemblance  between  our 
microcosm  and  the  world  at  large  as  close  as  possible, 
at  least  in  every  useful  point  we  are  trying  to  collect 
a  volume  of  Reports.  As  all  the  boys  are  expected 
to  be  present  during  a  trial,  to  give  importance  to 
the  proceeding,  the  time  of  such  as  are  capable  of  the 
task  must  be  profitably  employed  in  taking  notes. 
A  useful  effect  may  also  be  produced  upon  the  parties ; 
and  these  records  will  be  valuable  acquisitions  for 
those  boys  who  wish  to  study  the  laws,  and  enable 
themselves  to  conduct  the  jurisprudence  of  the  school. 
We  shall  detail  a  case  which  lately  occurred,  not 
because  it  is  the  most  interesting  which  could  have 
been  selected,  but  because  there  will  be  nothing  in 
its  publication  to  hurt  the  feelings  of  any  person 
engaged  in  the  ti-ansaction. 


CASE    OF    APPEAL.  209 

It  would  be  vain  to  attempt  any  concealment  of 
the  fact  that  our  pupils,  like  all  boys  in  the  full  tide 
of  health  and  spirits,  do  not  always  see  the  folly  of 
an  appeal  to  the  ultimo  ratio  regum  in  so  strong  a 
light  as  that  in  which  it  sometimes  appears  to  older 
eyes ;  and  resort  is  now  and  then  had  to  trial  by 
combat,  in  preference  to  trial  by  jury.  The  candid 
and  experienced  teacher,  who  knows  the  difficulty 
and  the  danger  of  too  rigorously  suppressing  natural 
impulses,  will  not  censure  us  for  endeavouring  to  re- 
gulate this  custom,  than  to  destroy  it  altogether.  In 
the  hope  of  lessening  the  number  of  those  fracas 
(never  very  lai^ge),  a  law  was  proposed,  which  the 
committee  adopted,  to  render  it  penal  for  any  person, 
except  the  Magistrate  and  the  Constables,  to  be  pre- 
sent at  a  battle.  Six  hours'  notice  must  be  given  by 
both  parties,  and  a  tax  paid  in  advance.  During  the 
interval,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Magistrate  to  attempt 
a  reconciliation.  These] regulations  were  intended  to 
give  opportunity  for  the  passions  to  cool,  and  to 
check  the  inclination  for  display  which  is  often  the 
sole  cause  of  the  disturbance. 

We  consider  the  effect  on  the  minds  of  the  spec- 
tators as  the  worst  part  of  the  transaction.  There 
is  something  dreadfully  brutalising  in  the  shouts  of 
incitement  and  triumph  which  generally  accompany 
a  feat  of  pugilism.  Neither  boys  nor  men  ought 
ever  to  witness  pain  without  sympathy.  It  is  almost 
needless  to  say,  that,  with  us,  fighting  is  anything 
rather  than  a  source  of  festivity  and  amusement. 

To   return    to    our    story. — A    day-scholar,    Avhose 
father's  grounds  adjoin  ours,  was  discovered  by  the 
Magistrate  to  have  witnessed  a  battle  from  a  tree 
VOL.  I.  o 


210  DE    QUINCEY. 

which  he  had  climbed  for  that  purpose.  The  Magis- 
trate fined  him.  He  appealed,  and  the  question  of 
his  liability  was  argued  at  some  length  before  the 
Committee. 

The  ground  which  the  appellant  took  was,  that  no 
day-scholar  could  be  amenable  to  the  laws  of  the 
school,  except  during  the  hours  of  business,  or  while 
on  the  premises  of  the  school,  and  that  the  alleged 
offence  was  committed  out  of  school  hours,  and  on 
his  father's  land. 

Public  opinion  ran  in  his  favour.  The  plea  that 
he  was  on  his  father's  land  seemed  to  have  great 
weight  with  his  schoolfellows.  To  fine  a  boy  under 
such  cii'cumstances  appeared  to  them  like  an  attempt 
to  invade  the  paternal  sanctuary,  and  the  motion  for 
quashing  conviction  of  the  Magistrate,  at  first  received 
the  support  of  several  members  of  the  Committee. 

The  attending  Teacher  saw  that  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  call  the  attention  of  the  Committee  to  general 
principles,  and  proposed  as  an  amendment  to  the 
general  motion,  the  following  resolution,  '  That  it  is 
desirable  that  the  laws  should  be  obeyed  at  all  times, 
and  in  all  places.'  In  support  of  this  amendment  he 
argued,  that  as  the  laws  had  the  happiness  of  the 
school  in  view,  a  breach  of  those  laws  must  certainly 
be  in  some  degree  destructive  of  the  general  good. 
That  to  allow  this  in  certain  individuals  would  be 
injurious  to  the  great  body,  but  still  more  so  to  the 
individuals  themselves ;  and  that  what  was  wrong  in 
the  schoolroom  or  on  the  playground  at  eleven  in  the 
morning,  could  not  be  right  in  the  fields  at  six  in  the 
afternoon.  In  conclusion  he  said,  '  Whether  or  not 
we  have  the  power  to  fine  a  person  for  a  breach  of 


CASE    OF    APPEAL.  211 

our  laws  when  he  is  at  a  distance  from  the  schools, 
is  a  question  which  it  is  not  our  present  business  to 
determine ;  but  I  firmly  believe  that  our  laws  are 
calculated  to  promote  in  the  highest  degree  our 
welfare,  and  I  wish  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from 
obeying  them  to  be  as  widely  diffused  as  possible.' 

The  amendment  was  carried  unanimously. 

Having  determined  '  that  it  was  desirable  that  the 
laws  should  be  obeyed  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,' 
it  was  necessary  in  the  next  jDlace  to  ascertain  whether 
it  was  not  a  part  of  our  law  that  such  should  be 
the  case. 

With  this  view  an  amendment  was  proposed  which 
declared,  that  such  was  the  intention  of  the  law,  and 
in  support  of  it  cases  were  cited  in  which  day-boys 
had  been  punished  for  offences  committed  at  a  distance 
from  the  school.  It  was  also  insisted,  that  in  no 
single  instance  had  the  laws  made  an  exception  in 
favour  of  the  day-boys.  They  universally  begin  by 
saying,  that,  if  '  any  one,'  or  '  any  pupil,'  or  '  any  boy,' 
shall  commit  such  and  such  an  offence,  etc.,  and  not 

*  any  boarder,'  or  '  any  day-boy  then  at  school.' 

The  second  amendment  was  also  carried  without 
opposition. 

The  question  was  now  confined  within  very  naiTow 
limits.      The  Committee  had    declared    that    it    was 

*  desirable  that  the  laws  should  be  obeyed  at  all  times 
and  in  all  places ;'  and  also,  that  by  law  no  exception 
was  made  in  favour  of  day-scholars.  It  only  remained 
therefore  for  the  Committee  to  consider,  whether  the 
police  of  the  school  had  the  power  to  enforce  the  laws. 

It  was  argued  that  in  this  case  they  had  been  en- 
forced, for  that  the  fine  had  actually  been  paid,  and 

O    2 


212  DE    QUINCEY. 

that  i;nless  the  Committee  interfered  to  prevent  it, 
they  would  continue  to  operate  as  they  had  done,  for 
the  welfare  of  the  school  at  large,  and  for  the  ulti- 
mate advantage  even  of  the  individuals  who  might 
at  first  appear  to  be  injured. 

The  amended  motion  was  now  put,  and  the 
conviction  was  unanimously  confirmed. 

This  detail  will  furnish  the  reader  with  a  more 
correct  conception  than  we  could  otherwise  give  him, 
of  the  opportunities  with  which  the  sittings  of  our 
little  Committees  furnish  the  members  for  making 
some  important  acquirements. 

In  the  first  place,  they  study  the  art  of  reasoning, 
and  that  too  under  very  favourable  circumstances ; 
being  fully  acquainted  with  the  facts  on  which  they 
are  called  to  exercise  their  judgments,  and  seeing 
them  in  all  their  bearings.  We  believe  that  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  facts  of  which  we  speak  to  be 
the  first  and  most  important  element  in  practical 
logic.  Reasoning,  strictly  speaking,  being  no  more 
than  the  art  of  tracing  analogies  and  differences. 
The  reality  of  the  business  in  which  the  students  are 
engaged  is  very  valuable,  inasmuch  as  it  furnishes 
them  with  strong  motives  to  exert  all  their  powers 
in  the  investigation.  The  matter  at  issue  '  comes 
home  to  their  business  and  bosoms ; '  it  may  deeply 
affect  their  interests,  and  will  not  pass  unnoticed  by 
their  constituents ;  among  whom  the  question  will 
be  again  discussed,  and  the  Committee-men  will  in 
conversation  have  to  defend  the  opinions  they  have 
officially  expressed.  Thus  every  argument  is  well 
canvassed  in  their  minds,  and  the  ideas  remain  under 
consideration    for   a    suflficient   time  to   become    per- 


CASE    OF    APPEAL.  213 

manently  fixed  in  their  remembrance.  The  power  of 
public  speaking  is  also  iu  some  degree  acquired,  and, 
we  hope,  without  the  countervailing  evils  which  have 
been  so  justly  deprecated.  The  great  defects  of  all 
artificial  methods  of  learning  the  art  of  debating  is, 
that  it  is  seldom  of  any  real  importance  to  either 
speaker  or  hearer,  on  which  side  the  question  under 
discussion  is  determined ;  consequently,  the  speaker 
is  more  anxious  to  display  liis  own  talents,  than  to 
convince  the  audience ;  which,  on  its  part,  wishes 
rather  for  amusement  than  instruction,  or  seeks  the 
latter  only  by  watching  the  conduct  of  this  mental 
fencing-match,  in  order  to  learn  the  most  skilful 
manner  of  handling  the  foils.  Every  one  who  addresses 
the  company  assembled,  feels  that  he  shall  be  move 
applauded  for  agreeably  wandering,  than  for  pointing 
out  and  following  the  best  and  straightest  road.  In 
short,  discussion,  instead  of  being  a  means  employed 
to  gain  an  object,  is  the  end  itself. 

The  orator,  if  such  a  name  is  to  be  so  degraded, 
I'ises  not  to  gain  the  votes  of  his  hearers,  but  to  make 
them  laugh  and  clap  their  hands ;  and,  this  is  most 
easily  done  by  advancing  smart  sophisms,  and  utter- 
ing well-delivered  absurdities  with  mock  solemnity, 
we  may  readily  conceive  how  little  the  powers  of 
investigation  can  be  exercised  and  improved  by  such 
practice  as  that  of  spouting  clubs  and  debating 
societies.  No  doubt  there  are  many  exceptions  to 
these  remarks,  but  the  vice  we  complain  of  is,  we 
fear,  inherent  in  some  degree  in  the  nature  of  the 
institutions,  although  by  care  in  the  choice  of  mem- 
bers, and  the  selection  of  an  audience,  it  may,  in  a 
great  measure,  be  counteracted. 


214  DE    QUINCEY. 

We  must  not  forget  to  state  tlie  advantages 
enjoyed  by  the  Teacher's  attendance  on  the  sittings 
of  our  Committees.  He  becomes  most  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  minds  of  his  pupils.  He  sees  tiieir 
difficulties  and  their  errors  in  a  strong  light,  and  is 
placed  in  a  situation  for  addressing  himself  more 
completely  to  the  state  of  their  wants  than  he  could 
be,  unless  they  were  thus  induced,  and  almost  com- 
pelled, to  disclose  all  the  workings  of  the  mental 
machine.  In  general,  nearly  every  person  who 
knows  a  boy  at  all,  has  an  opportunity  of  becoming 
better  acquainted  with  him  than  his  instructor.  No 
wonder,  considering  the  many  painful  sensations 
which  the  latter,  in  his  variovis  offices  of  accuser, 
witness,  judge  and  executioner,  is  compelled  to  exite. 
We  are  happily  relieved  from  these  difficulties,  but 
we  still  seize  with  avidity  every  means  by  which  our 
pupils  may  be  induced  to  develop  their  minds  to  our 
view,  feeling  that  our  acquaintance  with  their  springs 
of  thought  and  action  can  never  be  too  accurate  and 
complete.  The  votes  at  the  conclusion  of  the  debate 
show  us  the  measure  of  our  success.  Every  influence 
except  that  of  mind,  is,  we  trust,  out  of  the  question  : 
we  do  not  always  carry  a  majority  with  us ;  and  this 
fact  gives  us  hope,  that  when  we  do,  a  sincere  effect 
has  been  wrought  on  the  convictions  of  the  boys. 

To  conclude,  we  must  in  candour  acknowledge, 
that  we  search  more  industiiously  for  arguments  and 
illustrations  to  support  our  opinions,  than  we  should 
or  could  do,  under  other  circumstances.  The  elfect 
on  the  mind  of  the  Master  is  not  a  bad  test  of  any 
method  of  education. 


ABSTRACT   OF   SWEDENBORGIAXISM : 

By   IMMAXUEL   KAXT. 

{3Iay,  1824.) 

But  now  to  my  hero.     If  many  a  forgotten 


writer,  or  writer  destined  to  be  forgotten,  is  on  that 
account  the  more  deserving  of  applause  for  having 
spared  no  cost  of  toil  and  intellectual  exertion  upon 
his  works,  certainly  Swedenborg  of  all  such  -wi-iters  is 
deserving  of  the  most.  Without  doubt  his  flask  in 
the  moon  is  full ;  and  not  at  all  less  than  any  of  those 
which  Ariosto  saw  in  that  planet  filled  with  the  lost 
wits  of  men,  so  thoroughly  is  his  great  work  emptied 
of  every  drop  of  common  sense.  Nevertheless  there 
prevails  in  every  part  so  wonderful  an  agreement  with 
all  that  the  most  refined  and  consistent  sense  under 
the  same  fantastic  delusions  could  produce  on  the 
same  subject,  that  the  reader  will  pardon  me  if  I 
here  detect  the  same  curiosities  in  the  caprices  of 
fancy  which  many  other  virtuosi  have  detected  in  the 
caprices  of  nature  ;  for  instance,  in  variegated  marble, 
where  some  have  discovered  a  holy  family ;  or  in 
stalactites  and  petrifactions,  whex-e  others  have  dis- 
covered monks,  baptismal  fonts,  and  organs  ;  or  even 
in  frozen  window-panes,  where  our  countryman 
Liscow,  the  humoui'ist,  discovered  the  number  of  the 


216  DE   QUINCEY. 

beast  aucl  the  triple  crown  ;  things  which  he  only  is 
apt  to  descry,  whose  head  is  preoccupied  with  thoughts 
about  them. 

The  main  work  of  this  writer  is  composed  of  eight 
quarto  volumes  full  of  nonsense,  which  he  presented 
to  the  world  as  a  new  revelation  under  the  title  of 
Arcana  Coelestia.  In  this  work  his  visions  are  chiefly 
directed  to  the  discovery  of  the  secret  sense  in  the 
two  first  books  of  Moses,  and  to  a  similar  way  of 
interpreting  the  whole  of  the  Scripture.  All  these 
fantastic  interpretations  are  nothing  to  my  present 
purpose  :  those  who  have  any  curiosity  may  find  some 
account  of  them  in  the  JBibliotheca  TJieologica  of  Dr. 
Ernesti.  All  that  I  design  to  extract  are  his  audita 
et  visa,  from  the  supplements  to  his  chapters — that 
which  he  saw  with  his  own  eyes,  and  heard  with  his 
own  ears  :  for  these  parts  of  his  dreams  it  is  which 
are  to  be  considered  as  the  foundation  of  all  the  rest. 
Swedenborg's  style  is  dull  and  mean.  His  narrations 
and  their  whole  contexture  appear  in  fact  to  have 
originated  in  a  disorder  of  his  sensitive  faculty,  and 
suggest  no  reason  for  suspecting  that  the  speculative 
delusions  of  a  depraved  intellect  have  moved  him  to 
invent  them.  Viewed  in  this  light,  they  are  really 
of  some  importance — and  deserve  to  be  exhibited  in 
a  short  abstract ;  much  more  indeed  than  many  a 
brainless  product  of  fantastic  philosophers  who  swell 
our  journals  with  false  subtilties ;  for  a  coherent 
delusion  of  the  senses  is  always  a  more  remarkable 
phenomenon  than  a  delusion  of  the  intellect ;  inas 
much  as  the  grounds  of  this  latter  delusion  are  well 
known,  and  the  delusion  itself  cori'igible  enough  by 
self-exertion  and  by  putting  more  check   upon  the 


ABSTEACT    OF    SWEDENBORGIANISM.  217 

rash  precipitation  of  tlie  judgment;  whereas  a  de- 
lusion of  the  senses  touches  the  original  foundation 
of  all  judgment,  and  where  it  exists  is  radically 
incapable  of  all  cure  from  logic.  I  distinguish  there- 
fore in  our  author  his  ci'aziness  of  sense  from  his 
crazy  wits  ;  and  I  pass  over  his  absurd  and  distorted 
reasonings  in  those  parts  where  he  abandons  his 
visions,  for  the  same  reason  that  in  reading  a  philo- 
sopher we  are  often  obliged  to  separate  h;s  obverva- 
tions  from  his  arguments  :  and  generally,  delusive 
experiences  are  more  instructive  than  delusive  grounds 
of  experience  in  the  reason.  Whilst  I  thus  rob  the 
reader  of  some  few  moments,  which  otherwise  perhaps 
he  would  have  spent  with  no  greater  profit  in  reading 
works  of  abstract  philosophy  that  are  often  of  not 
less  trivial  import, — I  have  at  the  same  time  provided 
for  the  delicacy  of  his  taste  by  the  omission  of  many 
chimseras,  and  by  concentrating  the  essence  of  the 
book  into  a  few  drops ;  and  for  this  I  anticipate  no 
less  gratitude  from  him  than  (according  to  the  old 
story)  a  patient  expressed  towards  his  physicians — 
who  had  contented  themselves  with  ordering  him  to 
eat  the  bark  of  the  quinquina,  when  it  was  clearly  in 
their  power  to  have  insisted  on  his  eating  up  the 
whole  tree. 

Mr.  Swedenborg  divides  his  visions  into  thi-ee  kinds, 
of  which  the  first  consists  in  being  liberated  from  the 
body — an  intermediate  state  between  waking  and 
sleeping,  in  w^hich  he  saw — ^heard — and  felt  spirits. 
This  kind  he  has  experienced  three  or  four  times. 
The  second  consists  in  being  carried  away  by  spirits, 
whilst  he  continues  to  walk  the  streets  (suppose) 
without  losing  his  way ;  meantime  in  spirit  he  is  ia 


218  DE    QUINX'EY. 

quite  other  regions,  and  sees  distinctly  houses,  men, 
forests,  &c.  ;  and  all  this  for  some  hours  long,  until 
he  suddenly  finds  himself  again  in  his  true  place. 
This  has  happened  to  him  two  or  three  times.  The 
third  or  ordinary  kind  of  visions  is  that  which  he 
has  daily  when  wide  awake ;  and  from  this  class  his 
narrations  are  chiefly  taken.  All  men,  according  to 
Swedenborg,  stand  in  an  intimate  connection  with  the 
spiritual  world  ;  only  they  are  not  aware  of  it ;  and 
the  diiference  between  himself  and  others  consists 
simply  in  this — that  his  innermost  nature  is  laid 
open,  of  which  gift  he  always  speaks  with  the  most 
devout  spirit  of  gratitude  (Datum  mihi  est  ex  divina 
Domini  misericordia).  From  the  context  it  is  ap- 
parent that  this  gift  consists  in  the  consciousness  of 
those  obscure  representations  which  the  soul  receives 
through  its  continual  connection  with  the  spiritual 
world.  Accordingly  he  distinguishes  in  men  between 
the  external  and  the  internal  memory.  The  former 
he  enjoys  as  a  person  who  belongs  to  the  visible  world, 
but  the  latter  in  virtue  of  his  intercourse  with  the 
spiritual  world.  Upon  this  distinction  is  grounded 
also  the  distinction  between  the  outer  and  inner  man  ; 
and  Swedenborg's  prerogative  consists  in  this — that 
he  stands  already  in  this  life  in  the  society  of  spirits, 
and  is  recognised  by  them  as  possessing  such  a  prero- 
gative. In  the  inner  memory  is  retained  whatsoever 
has  vanished  from  the  outer ;  and  of  all  which  is 
presented  to  the  consciousness  of  man  nothing  is  ever 
lost.  After  death  the  i^emembrance  of  all  which  ever 
entered  his  soul,  and  even  all  that  had  perished  to 
himself,  constitutes  the  entire  book  of  his  life.  The 
presence  of  spirits,  it  is  true,  strikes  only  upon  his 


ABSTRACT    OF    SWEDENBORGIANISM.  219 

inner  sense.  Nevertheless  this  is  able  to  excite  an 
apparition  of  these  spirits  external  to  himself,  and 
even  to  invest  them  with  a  human  figure.  The 
language  of  spirits  is  an  immediate  and  unsymbolio 
communication  of  ideas ;  notwithstanding  which  it  is 
always  clothed  in  the  semblance  of  that  language 
which  Swedenborg  himself  speaks,  and  is  represented 
as  external  to  him.  One  spirit  reads  in  the  memory 
of  another  spirit  all  the  representations,  whether 
images  or  ideas,  which  it  contains.  Thus  the  spirits  see 
in  Swedenborg  all  the  representations  which  he  has 
of  this  world ;  and  with  so  clear  an  intuition  that 
they  often  deceive  themselves  and  fancy  that  they  see 
the  objects  themselves  immediately — which  however 
is  impossible,  since  no  pure  spirit  has  the  slightest 
perception  of  the  material  universe  :  nay  they  cannot 
gain  any  idea  of  it  through  intercourse  with  the  souls 
of  other  living  men,  because  their  inner  nature  is  not 
opened — i.  e.  their  inner  sense  contains  none  but 
obscure  representations.  Hence  it  arises  that  Mr. 
tSwedenborg  is  the  true  oracle  of  spirits,  which  are 
not  at  all  less  curious  to  read  in  him  the  present 
condition  of  the  world,  than  he  is  to  view  in  their 
memory,  as  in  a  mirror,  the  marvels  of  the  spiritual 
world.  Although  these  spirits  stand  in  like  manner 
closely  connected  with  all  other  souls  of  living  men, 
by  a  reciprocal  commerce  of  action  and  passion,  yet 
they  are  as  little  aware  of  this  as  men  are  aware  of 
it.  Spirits  therefore  ascribe  to  themselves  as  the 
product  of  their  own  minds  what  in  fact  results  from 
the  action  of  human  souls  upon  them ;  just  as  men 
during  their  lives  imagine  that  all  their  thoughts, 
and  the  motions  of  the  will  which  take  place  within 


220  DE    QUINCEY, 

them,  arise  from  themselves,  although  in  fact  they 
oftentimes  take  their  origin  in  the  spiritual  world. 
Meantime  every  human  soul,  even  in  this  life,  has  its 
place  and  station  in  this  spiritual  world,  and  belongs 
to  a  certain  society  which  is  always  adapted  to  its 
inner  condition  of  truth  and  goodness, — that  is,  to 
the  condition  of  the  understanding  and  the  will.  But 
the  places  of  souls  in  relation  to  each  other  have 
nothing  in  common  with  the  material  world ;  and 
therefore  the  soul  of  a  man  in  India  is  often  in 
I'espect  to  spiritual  situation  next  neighbour  to  the 
soul  of  another  man  in  Europe ;  as  on  the  contrary 
very  often  those,  who  dwell  corporeally  under  the 
same  roof,  ai-e  with  respect  to  their  spiritual  relations 
far  enough  asunder.  If  a  man  dies,  his  soul  does  not 
on  that  account  change  its  place  ;  but  simply  feels 
itself  in  that  place  which  in  regard  to  other  spirits  it 
already  held  in  this  life.  For  the  rest,  although  the 
relation  of  spirits  to  each  other  is  no  true  relation  of 
space,  yet  has  it  to  them  the  appearance  of  space ; 
and  their  affinities  or  attractions  for  each  other  assume 
the  semblance  of  proximities,  as  their  repulsions  do 
of  distances;  just  as  spirits  themselves  are  not 
actually  extended,  but  yet  present  the  appearance  to 
each  other  of  a  human  figure.  In  this  imaginary 
space  there  is  an  undisturbed  intercourse  of  spiritual 
natures.  Mr.  Swedenborg  converses  with  departed 
souls  whenever  he  chooses,  and  reads  in  their  memory 
(he  means  to  say  in  their  representative  faculty)  that 
very  condition  in  which  they  contemplate  themselves  ; 
and  this  he  sees  as  clearly  as  with  his  bodily  eyes. 
^Moreover  the  enormous  distance  of  the  rational  in- 
habitants of  the  world  is  to  be  accounted  as  nothinof 


ABSTRACT   OF    SWEDENBORGIANISM.  221 

in  relation  to  the  spiritual  universe ;  and  to  talk  with 
an  inhabitant  of  Saturn  is  just  as  easy  to  him  as  to 
speak  with  a  departed  human  soul.  All  depends 
upon  the  relation  of  their  inner  condition  in  reference 
to  their  agreement  in  truth  and  goodness  :  but  those 
spirits,  which  have  weak  affinities  for  each  other,  can 
readily  come  into  intercourse  through  the  inter-agency 
of  others.  On  this  account  it  is  not  necessary  that  a 
man  should  actually  have  dwelt  on  all  the  other 
heavenly  bodies  in  order  to  know  them  together  with 
all  their  wonders. 

One  presiding  doctrine  in  Swedenborg's  raviugs  is 
this  :  corporeal  beings  have  no  subsistence  of  their 
own,  but  exist  merely  by  and  through  the  spiritual 
world ;  although  each  body  not  by  means  of  one 
spirit  alone,  but  of  all  taken  together.  Hence  the 
knowledge  of  material  things  has  two  meanings ;  an 
external  meaning  referring  to  the  inter-dependencies 
of  the  matter  upon  itself,  and  an  internal  meaning  in 
so  far  as  they  denote  the  powers  of  the  spiritual  world 
which  are  their  causes.  Thus  the  body  of  man  has  a 
system  of  parts  related  to  each  other  agreeably  to 
material  laws  :  but,  in  so  far  as  it  is  supported  by 
the  spirit  which  lives,  its  limbs  and  their  functions 
have  a  symbolic  value  as  expressions  of  those  faculties 
in  the  soul  from  which  they  derive  their  form,  mode 
of  activity,  and  power  of  enduring.  The  same  law 
holds  with  regard  to  all  other  things  in  the  visible 
universe  :  they  have  (as  has  been  said)  one  meaning 
as  things — which  is  trivial,  and  another  as  signs — 
which  is  far  weightier.  Hence  by  the  way  arises  the 
source  of  tho.^e  new  interpretations  of  Scripture  which 
Swedenborg  has  introduced.     For  the  inner  sense, — 


222  DE    QUINCEY. 

that  is,  the  symbolic  relation  of  all  things  there 
recorded  to  the  spiritual  world, — is,  as  he  conceits, 
the  kernel  of  its  value ;  all  the  rest  being  only  its 
shell.  All  spirits  represent  themselves  to  one  another 
under  the  appearance  of  extended  forms ;  and  the 
influences  of  all  these  spiritual  beings  amongst  one 
another  raise  to  them  at  the  same  time  appearances 
of  other  extended  beings,  and  as  it  were  of  a  material 
world.  Swedenborg  therefore  speaks  of  gardens — 
spacious  regions — mansions — galleries — and  arcades 
of  spiiuts — as  of  things  seen  by  himself  in  the  clearest 
light ;  and  he  assures  us — that,  having  many  times 
conversed  with  all  his  friends  after  their  death,  he 
had  almost  always  found  in  those  who  had  but  lately 
died — that  they  could  scarcely  convince  themselves 
that  they  had  died,  because  they  saw  round  about 
them  a  world  similar  to  the  one  they  had  quitted. 
He  found  also  that  spiritual  societies,  which  had  the 
same  inner  condition,  had  the  same  apparition  of 
space  and  of  all  things  in  space  ;  and  that  the  change 
of  their  internal  state  was  always  accompanied  by 
the  appearance  of  a  change  of  place. 

I  have  already  noticed  that,  according  to  our 
author,  the  various  powers  and  pi-operties  of  the  soul 
stand  in  sympathy  with  the  organs  of  the  body 
entrusted  to  its  government.  The  outer  man  there- 
fore corresponds  to  the  whole  inner  man  ;  and  hence, 
whenever  any  remai'kable  spiritual  influence  from  the 
invisible  world  reaches  one  of  these  faculties  of  the 
soul,  he  is  sensible  also  harmonically  of  the  apparent 
presence  of  it  in  the  corresponding  members  of  his 
outer  man.  To  this  head  now  he  refers  a  vast  variety 
of  sensations  in  his  body  which  are  uniformly  con- 


ABSTRACT   OF    SWEDENBOEGIANISM.  223 

nected  witli  spiritual  intuition ;  but  the  absui'dity  of 
them  is  so  enormous  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
adduce  even  a  single  instance. By  all  this  a  pre- 
paration is  made  for  the  strangest  and  most  fantastic 
of  his  notions  in  which  all  his  ravings  are  blended. 
As  different  powers  and  faculties  constitute  that 
unity  which  is  the  soul  or  inner  man,  so  also  different 
spirits  (whose  leading  characteristics  bear  the  same 
relation  to  each  other  as  the  various  faculties  of  a 
spii"it)  constitute  one  society  which  exhibits  the 
appearance  of  one  great  man ;  and  in  this  shadowy 
image  every  spirit  is  seen  in  that  place  and  in  those 
visible  members  which  are  agreeable  to  its  proper 
function  in  such  a  spiritual  body.  And  all  spii-itual 
societies  taken  together,  and  the  entire  universe  of 
all  these  invisible  beings,  appears  again  in  the  form 
of  a  hugest  and  ultra-enormous  man  mountain  :  a 
monstrous  and  gigantic  fancy,  which  perhaps  has 
grown  out  of  the  school  mode  of  representing  a  whole 
quarter  of  the  world  under  the  image  of  a  virgin 
sitting.  In  this  immeasurable  man  is  an  entire  and 
inner  commerce  of  each  spirit  with  all,  and  of  all  with 
each ;  and,  let  the  position  of  men  in  reference  to 
each  other  be  what  it  may,  they  take  quite  another 
position  in  this  enormous  man — a  position  which  they 
never  change,  and  which  is  only  in  appearance  a  local 
position  in  an  immeasurable  space,  but  in  fact  a 
determinate  kind  of  relation  and  influence. 

But  I  am  weary  of  transcribing  the  delirious  ravings 
of  a  poor  visionary,  the  craziest  that  has  ever  existed, 
or  of  pursuing  them  to  his  descriptions  of  the  state 
after  death.  I  am  checked  also  by  other  con- 
siderations.     For,    although   in    foi'ming   a   medical 


224  DE    QUINCEY. 

museum  it  is  right  to  collect  specimens  not  only  of 
natural  but  also  of  unnatural  productions  and 
abortions,  yet  it  is  necessary  to  be  cautious  before 
whom  you  show  them :  and  amongst  my  readers 
there  may  happen  to  be  some  in  a  crazy  condition  of 
nerves ;  and  it  would  give  me  pain  to  think  that  I 
had  been  the  occasion  of  any  mischief  to  them. 
Having  warned  them  however  from  the  beginning,  I 
am.  not  responsible  for  anything  that  may  happen ; 
and  must  desire  that  no  person  will  lay  at  my  door 
the  moon-calves  which  may  chance  to  arise  from  any 
teeming  fancy  impregnated  by  Mr.  Swedenborg's 
revelations. 

In  conclusion  I  have  to  say  that  I  have  not  inter- 
polated my  author's  dreams  with  any  surreptitious 
ones  of  my  own ;  but  have  laid  a  faithful  abstract 
before  the  economic  reader,  who  might  not  be  well 
pleased  to  pay  seven  pounds  sterling  for  a  body  of 
raving.  I  have  indeed  omitted  many  circumstantial 
pictures  of  his  intuitions,  because  they  could  only 
have  served  to  disturb  the  reader's  slumber  ;  and  the 
confused  sense  of  his  revelations  I  have  now  and  then 
clothed  in  a  more  current  diction.  But  all  the 
important  features  of  the  sketch  I  have  preserved  in 

their   native  integrity. And  thus  I  return  with 

some  little  shame  from  my  foolish  labours,  from 
which  I  shall  draw  this  moral :  That  it  is  often  a 
very  easy  thing  to  act  prudentially  ;  but  alas  !  too 
often  only  after  we  have  toiled  to  our  prudence 
through  a  forest  of  delusions. 


SKETCH   OF   PROFESSOR   WILSON* 

[In  a  Letter  to  an  American  Gentlcmaji.] 

My  dear  L. , — Among  the  lions  whom  you  missed 
by  one  accident  or  another  on  your  late  travels  in 
Europe,  I  observe  that  you  recur  to  none  with  so  much 
regret  as  Professor  Wilson ;  you  dwell  upon  this  one 
disappointment  as  a  personal  misfortune  ;  and  perhaps 
with  reason  ;  for,  in  the  course  of  my  life,  I  have  met 
with  no  man  of  equally  varied  accomplishments,  or, 
upon  the  whole,  so  well  entitled  to  be  ranked  with 
that  order  of  men  distinguished  by  brilliant  versatility 
and  ambidexterity — of  which  order  we  find  such 
eminent  models  in  Alcibiades,  in  Csesar,  in  Crichton, 
in  that  of  Servan  recorded  by  Sully,  and  in  one  or 
two  Italians.    Pity  that  you  had  not  earlier  communi- 

*  This  was  written  for  The  Edinburgh  Literary  Gazette,  of 
which  sixty-one  numbers  appear  to  have  been  issued  in  1829-30. 
The  paper  is  now  so  scarce,  that  the  American  publishers  of 
De  Quincey's  works  photographed  their  '  copy '  from  that 
contained  in  the  Advocates'  Library,  Edinburgh.  There  is  a 
file  in  the  British  Museum.  I  have  not  been  able  to  authen- 
ticate any  other  contribution  from  the  pen  of  De  Quincey.  This 
letter  deserves  attention  in  various  ways,  but  particularly  for 
the  passage  on  Elleray — Christopher  North's  home  on  the 
banks  of  Windermere,  Mrs.  Gordon  in  the  life  of  her  Father, 
Professor  Wilson,  remarks  : — '  For  a  desciiption  of  this  beau- 
tiful spot  I  gladly  avail  myself  of  the  striking  picture  by  Mr. 
De  Quincey.' — H. 

VOL.    I.  P 


226  DE    QUINCEY. 

cated  to  me  the  exact  route  you  were  bound  to,  and 
the  pai'ticular  succession  of  your  engagements  when 
you  visited  the  English  Lakes  ;  since,  in  that  case, 
my  interest  with  Professor  Wilson  (supposing  always 
that  you  had  declined  to  rely  upon  the  better  pass- 
port of  your  own  mei'its  as  a  naturalist)  would  have 
availed  for  a  greater  thing  than  at  that  time  stood 
between  yovi  and  the  introduction  which  you  coveted. 
On  the  day,  or  the  night  rather,  when  you  were  at 
Bowness  and  Ambleside,  I  happen  to  know  that 
Professor  Wilson's  business  was  one  which  might 
have  been  executed  by  proxy,  tliough  it  could  not  be 
delayed ;  and  I  also  know  that,  apart  from  the 
general  courtesy  of  his  nature,  he  would,  at  all  times, 
have  an  especial  pleasure  in  waiving  a  claim  of  busi- 
ness for  one  of  science  or  letters,  in  the  person  of  a 
foreigner  coming  from  a  great  distance ;  and  that  in 
no  other  instance  would  he  make  such  a  sacrifice  so 
cordially  as  on  behalf  of  an  able  naturalist.  Perhaps 
you  already  know  from  your  countryman,  Audubon, 
that  the  Professor  is  himself  a  naturalist,  and  of 
original  merit ;  in  fact,  worth  a  score  of  such  meagre 
bookish  naturalists  as  are  formed  in  museums  and  by 
second-hand  acts  of  memory  ;  having  (like  Audubon) 
built  much  of  his  knowledge  upon  personal  observa- 
tion. Hence  he  has  two  great  advantages  :  one,  that 
his  knowledge  is  accurate  in  a  very  unusual  degree  ; 
and  another,  that  this  knowledge,  having  grown  up 
under  the  inspiration  of  a  real  interest  and  an  un- 
affected love  for  its  objects, — commencing,  indeed,  at 
an  age  when  no  affectation  in  matters  of  that  nature 
could  exist, — has  settled  vipon  those  facts  and  circum- 
stances which  have  a  true  philosophical  value  :  habits, 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON,  227 

predomiuant  affections,  the  direction  of  instincts,  and 
the  compensatoiy  processes  where  these  happen  to  be 
thwarted, — on  all  such  topics  he  is  learned  and  full ; 
whilst,  on  the  science  of  measurements  and  propor- 
tions, applied  to  dorsal-fins  and  tail-feathers,  and  on 
the  exact  arrangement  of  colours,  &c. — that  petty  up- 
holstery of  nature,  on  which  books  are  so  tedious  and 
elaborate,— not  uncommonly  he  is  negligent  or  forget- 
ful. What  may  have  served  in  later  years  to  quicken 
and  stimulate  his  knowledge  in  this  field,  and,  at  any 
rate,  greatly  to  extend  it,  is  the  conversation  of  his 
youngest  brother,  Mr.  James  Wilson,  who  (as  yov, 
know  much  better  than  I)  is  a  naturalist  majorum 
gentium.  He,  indeed,  whilst  a  boy  of  not  more  than 
sixteen  or  seventeen,  was  in  correspondence  (I  believe) 
with  Montague  the  Ornithologist ;  and  about  the 
same  time  had  skill  enough  to  pick  holes  in  the  coat 
of  Mr.  Hiiber,  the  German  reformer  of  our  then 
erroneous  science  of  bees. 

You  see,  therefore,  that  no  possible  introduction 
could  have  stood  you  more  in  stead  than  your  own 
extensive  knowledge  of  transatlantic  ornithology. 
Swammerdam  passed  his  life,  it  is  said,  in  a  ditch. 
That  was  a  base,  earthy  solitude, — and  a  piison.  But 
you  and  Audubon  have  passed  your  lives  in  the 
heavenly  solitudes  of  forests  and  savannahs ;  and 
such  solitude  as  this  is  no  prison,  but  infinite  liberty. 
The  knowledge  which  you  have  gathered  has  been 
answerable  to  the  character  of  your  school  :  and  no 
sort  of  knowledge  could  have  secured  you  a  better 
welcome  with  Professor  Wilson.  Yet,  had  it  been 
otherwise,   I  repeat  that   my  interest    (as    I   flatter 

myself)  would  have  opened  the  gates  of  Elleray  to 

p  2 


228  DE    QUINCEY. 

you  even  at  midnight ;  for  I  am  so  old  a  friend  of 
Mr.  Wilson  that  I  take  a  pride  in  supposing  myself 
the  oldest ;  and,  barring  relations  by  blood,  arrogate 
the  rights  of  dean  in  the  chapter  of  his  associates  : 
or  at  least  I  know  of  but  one  person  whose  title  can 
probably  date  earlier  than  mine.  About  this  very 
month  when  I  am  writing,  I  have  known  Professor 
Wilson  for  a  cycle  of  twenty  years  and  more,  which 
is  just  half  of  his  life — and  also  half  of  mine;  for 
we  are  almost  ad  apicem  of  the  same  age ;  Wilson 
being  born  in  May,  and  I  in  August,  of  the  same 
memorable  year. 

My  inti'oduction  to  him — setting  apart  the  intro- 
ducee  himself — was  memorable  from  one  sole  circum- 
stance, viz.  the  person  of  the  introducer.  William 
Wordsworth  it  was,  who  in  the  vale  of  Grasmere,  if  it 
can  interest  you  to  know  the  place,  and  in  the  latter 
end  of  1808,  if  you  can  be  supposed  to  care  about  the 
time,  did  me  the  favour  of  making  me  known  to  John 
Wilson,  or  as  I  might  say  (upon  the  Scottish  fashion 
of  designating  men  from  their  territorial  pretensions) 
to  Elleray.  I  remember  the  whole  scene  as  circum- 
stantially as  if  it  belonged  to  but  yesterday.  In  the 
vale  of  Grasmere, — that  peerless  little  vale  which  you 
and  Gray  the  poet  and  so  many  others  have  joined  in 
admiring  as  the  very  Eden  of  English  beauty,  peace, 
and  pastoral  solitude, — you  may  possibly  recall,  even 
from  that  flying  glimpse  you  had  of  it,  a  modern 
house  called  Allan  Bank,  stauding  under  a  low  screen 
of  woody  rocks  which  descend  from  the  hill  of  Silver 
How,  on  the  western  side  of  the  lake.  This  house  had 
been  then  recently  built  by  a  worthy  mei^chant  of 
Liverpool ;  but  for  some  reason  of  no  importance  to 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  229 

you  and  me,  not  being  immediately  wanted  for  the 
family  of  the  owner,  had  been  let  for  a  term  of  three 
years   to  Mr,  Wordsworth.     At  the  time  I  speak  of, 
both  Mr.  Coleridge  and  myself  were  on  a  visit  to  Mr. 
Wordsworth  ;  and  one  room  on  the  ground  floor,  de- 
signed for  a  breakfasting-room,   which   commands  a 
sublime    view    of   the    three    mountains, — Fairfield, 
Arthur's   Chair,  and  Seat  Sandal  (the  first  of  them 
within  about  four  hiindred  feet  of  the  highest  moun- 
tains in  Great   Britain),  was  then  occupied  by  Mr. 
Coleridge  as  a  study.    On  this  particular  day,  the  sun 
having  only  just  set,  it  naturally  happened  that  Mr. 
Coleridge — whose  nightly  vigils  were  long — had  not 
yet  come  down  to  breakfast :  meantime,  and  until  the 
epoch  of  the  Coleridgian  bi*eakfast  should  arrive,  his 
study  was  lawfully  disposable  to  profaner  uses.    Here, 
therefore,  it  was,  that,  opening  the  door  hastily  in 
quest  of  a  book,  I  found  seated,  and  in  earnest  con- 
versation, two  gentlemen — one  of  them  my  host,  Mr. 
Wordsworth,    at   that    time    about    thirty-seven    or 
thirty-eight  years  old  ;  the  other  was  a  younger  man 
by  good  sixteen  or  seventeen  years,  in  a  sailor's  dress, 
manifestly  in   robust  health — -fervidus  juventd,  and 
wearing  upon  his  countenance  a  powerful  expression 
of  ardour  and  animated  intelligence,  mixed  with  much 
good  nature.     ^  Mr.  Wilson  of  Elleray  ' — delivered,  as 
the  formula  of  introduction,  in  the  deep  tones  of  Mr. 
Wordsworth — at  once  banished  the  momentary  sur- 
prise I  felt  on  finding  an  unknown  stranger  where  I 
had  expected  nobody,  and  substituted  a  surprise  of 
another  kind  :   I  now  well  understood  who  it  was  that 
I   saw ;  and  there  was   no    wonder   in  his  being  at 
Allan  Bank,  Elleray  standing  within  nine  miles;  but 


230  DE    QUINCEY. 

(as  usually  happens  in  such  cases)  I  felt  a  shock  of 
surprise  on  seeing  a  person  so  little  corresponding  to 
the  one  I  had  half  unconsciously  prefigured. 

And  here  comes  the  place  naturally,  if  anywhere, 
for  a  description  of  Mr.  Wilson's  person  and  general 
appearance  in  carriage,  manner,  and  deportment ;  and 
a  word  or  two  I  shall  certainly  say  on  these  points, 
simply  because  I  know  that  I  must,  else  my  American 
friends  will  complain  that  I  have  left  out  that  precise 
section  in  my  whole  account  which  it  is  most  impos- 
sible for  them  to  supply  for  themselves  by  any 
acquaintance  with  his  printed  works.  Yet  suffer  me, 
before  I  comply  with  this  demand,  to  enter  one  word 
of  private  protest  against  the  childish  (nay,  worse 
than  childish — the  missy)  spirit  in  which  such  demands 
originate.  From  my  very  earliest  years, — that  is  the 
earliest  years  in  which  I  had  any  sense  of  what 
belongs  to  true  dignity  of  mind, — I  declare  to  you 
that  I  have  considered  the  interest  which  men,  grown 
men,  take  in  the  personal  appearance  of  each  other 
as  one  of  the  meanest  aspects  under  which  human 
curiosity  commonly  pi'esents  itself.  Certainly  I 
have  the  same  intellectual  perception  of  differences 
in  such  things  that  other  men  have ;  but  I  connect 
none  of  the  feelings,  whether  of  admiration  or 
contempt,  liking  or  disliking,  which  are  obviously 
connected  with  these  perceptions  by  human  beings 
generally.  Such  words  as  '  commanding  appearance,' 
'  prepossessing  countenance,'  applied  to  the  figures  or 
faces  of  the  males  of  the  human  species,  have  no 
meaning  in  my  ears  :  no  man  commands  me,  no  man 
prepossesses  me,  by  anything  in,  on,  or  about  his 
carcass.     What  care  I  for  any  man's  legs  ?     I  laugh 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  231 

at  his  ridiculous  presumption  in  conceiting  that  I  shall 
trouble  myself  to  admire  or  to  respect  anything  that 
he  can  produce  in  his  i')]ijIJs{cs.     What !  shall  I  honour 
Milo  for  the  very  qualities  which  he  has  in  common 
with  the  beastly  ox  he  carries — his  thews  and  sinews, 
his  ponderous  strength  and  weight,  and  the  quantity 
of  thumping  that  his  hide  will  carry  ?    I  disclaim  and 
disdain  any  participation  in  such  green-girl  feelings. 
I  admit  that  the  baby  feelings  I  am  here  condemning 
are  found  in  connection  with  the  highest  intellects  : 
in  particular,  Mr.  Coleridge  for  instance  once  said  to 
me,  as  a  justifying  reason  for  his  dislike  of  a  certain 
celebrated   Scotsman,  with  an  air  of  infinite  disgust, 
— '  that  ugh  ! '  (making  a  guttural  sound  as  if  of  ex- 
ecration) '  he  (viz.  the  said  Scotsman)  was  so  chicken- 
breasted.'     I  have  been  assured  by  the  way,  that  Mr. 
Coleridge  was  mistaken  in  the  mere  matter  of  fact : 
but  supposing  that  he  were  not,  what  a  reason  for 
a   philosopher  to   build  a   disgust   upon  !     And   Mr. 
Wordsworth,  in  or  about  the  year  1820,  in  expressing 
the  extremity  of  his  Nil  admirari  spirit,  declared  that 
he  would  not  go  ten  yards  out  of  his  I'oad  to  see  the 
finest  specimen  of  man  (intellectually  speaking)  that 
Europe  had  to  show  :    and   so   far  indeed  I   do  not 
quarrel  with  his  opinion  ;  but  Mr.  Wordsworth  went 
on  to  say  that  this  indifference  did  not  extend  itself 
to  man  considered  physically ;  and  that  he  would  still 
exert  himself  to  a  small  extent  (suppose  a  mile  or  so) 
for  the  sake  of  seeing  Belzoni.     TJait  was  the  case  he 
instanced :  and,  as  I  understood  him,  not  by  way  of 
a  general  illusti\ation   for   his   meaning,  but  that  he 
really   felt  an  exclusive   interest   in   this    particular 
man's  physics.     Now   Belzoni   was   certainly  a  good 


232  DE    QUINCEY. 

tumbler,  as  I  have  heard  ;  and  hopped  well  upon  one 
leg,  when  surmounted   and   crested  by  a  pyramid  of 
men  and  boys  ;  and  jumped  capitally  through  a  hoop  ; 
and  did  all  sorts  of  tricks  in  all  sorts  of  styles,  not  at 
all  worse  than  any  monkey,  bear,  or  learned  pig,  that 
ever  exhibited  in  Great  Britain.    And  I  would  myself 
have  given  a  shilling  to   have   seen  him  fight  with 
that  cursed  Turk  that  assaulted  him  in  the  streets  of 
Cairo  ;  and  would  have 'given  him  a  crown  for  catch- 
ing the  circumcised  dog  by  the  throat  and  effectually 
taking  the  conceit  out  of  his  Mahometan  carcass  :  but 
then   that  would  have  been  for  the  spectacle  of  the 
passions,  which,  in  such  a  case,  would  have  been  let 
loose  :  as  to  the  mere  animal  Belzoni, — who  after  all 
was  not  to  be  compared  to  Topham  the  Warwickshire 
man,  that  drew  back   by  main  force  a  cai-t,  and  its 
driver,  and  a  strong  horse, — as  to  the  mere  animal 
Belzoni,  I  say,  and  his  bull  neck,  I  would  have  much 
preferred  to  see  a  real  bull  or  the  Darlington  ox.    The 
svim  of  the  matter  is  this  :  all  men,  even  those  who 
are  most  manly  in  their  style  of  thinking  and  feeling, 
in   many    things    retain    the    childishness    of    their 
childish  years  :  no  man  thoroughly  Aveeds  himself  of 
alL     And  this  particular  mode  of  childishness  is  one 
of  the  commonest,   into  which  they   fall   the    more 
readily  from  the  force  of  sympathy,  and  because  they 
apprehend   no    reason    for    directing    any   vigilance 
against  it.    But  I  contend  that  reasonably  no  feelings 
of  deep  interest  are  justifiable  as  applied  to  any  point 
of  external  form  or  feature  in  human  beings,  unless 
under  two  reservations  :  first,  that  they  shall  have 
reference  to  women  ;  because  women,  being  lawfvilly 
the  objects  of  passions  and  tender  affections,  which  can 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSOX.  233 

have  no  existence  as  applied  to  men,  are  objects  also, 
rationally  and  consistently,  of  all  other  secondary 
feelings  (such  as  those  derived  from  their  personal 
appearance)  which  have  any  tendency  to  promote  and 
support  the  first.  Whereas  between  men  the  highest 
mode  of  intercourse  is  merely  intellectual,  which  is 
not  of  a  nature  to  receive  support  or  strength  from 
any  feelings  of  pleasure  or  disgust  connected  with  the 
accidents  of  external  appearance :  but  exactly  in  the 
degree  in  which  these  have  any  influence  at'  all  they 
must  warp  and  disturb  by  improper  biases  ;  and  the 
single  case  of  exception,  where  such  feelings  can  be 
honourable  and  laudable  amongst  the  males  of  the 
human  species,  is  where  they  regard  such  deformities 
as  are  the  known  products  and  expressions  of  criminal 
or  degrading  propensities.  All  beyond  this,  I  care 
not  by  whom  countenanced,  is  infirmity  of  mind,  and 
would  be  baseness  if  it  were  not  excused  by  imbecility. 
Excuse  this  digression,  for  which  1  have  a  double 
reason  :  chiefly  I  was  anxious  to  put  on  record  my 
own  opinions,  and  my  contempt  for  men  generally  in 
this  particular;  and  hei-e  I  seemed  to  have  a  con 
spicuous  situation  for  that  purpose.  Secondly,  apart 
from  this  purpose  of  oifence,  I  was  at  any  rate 
anxious,  merely  on  a  defensive  principle,  to  screen 
myself  from  the  obvious  misinterpretation  incident 
to  the  case  :  saying  anything  minute  or  in  detail  upon 
a  man's  person,  I  should  necessarily  be  supposed  to 
do  so  under  the  ordinary  blind  feelings  of  interest  in 
that  subject  which  govern  most  people ;  feelings 
which  I  disdain.  Now,  having  said  all  this,  and 
made  my  formal  protest,  liheravi  anwiam  meani  ;  and 
I  revert  to  my  subject,  and  shall  say  that  word  or 


234  DE    QUINCEY. 

two  which  I  was  obliged  to  promise  you  ou  Professor 
Wilson's  personal  appearance. 

Figure  to  yourself,  then,  a  tall  man,  about  six  feet 
high,  within  half  an  inch  or  so,  built  with  tolerable 
appearance  of  strength ;  but  at  the  date  of  my 
description  (that  is,  in  the  very  spring-tide  and 
blossom  of  youth)  wearing,  for  the  predominant 
character  of  his  person,  lightness  and  agility,  or  (in 
our  Westmoreland  phrase),  lishness :  he  seemed  framed 
with  an  express  view  to  gymnastic  exercises  of  every 
sort — 

"AXfia,  troSwKiiiji',  cictkoi',  dicovra,  TraXt'jv' 

In  the  first  of  these  exercises,  indeed,  and  possibly 
(but  of  that  I  am  not  equally  certain)  in  the  second, 
I  afterwards  came  to  know  that  he  was  absolutely 
unrivalled  :  and  the  best  leapers  at  that  time  in  the 
ring,  Richmond  the  Black  and  others,  on  getting  '  a 
taste  of  his  quality,'  under  circvimstances  of  con- 
siderable disadvantage  [viz.  after  a  walk  from  Oxford 
to  Moulsey  Hurst,  which  I  believe  is  fifty  miles], 
declined  to  undertake  him.  For  this  exercise  he  had 
two  remarkable  advantages  :  it  is  recorded  of  Sheffield, 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  that,  though  otherwise  a 
handsome  man,  '  he  offended  the  connoisseurs  in 
statuesque  proportions  by  one  eminent  defect — 
perhaps  the  most  obtrusive  to  which  the  human 
figure  is  liable  — viz.  a  body  of  length  disproportioned 
to  his  legs.  In  Mr.  Wilson  the  proportions  were 
fortunately  reversed  :  a  short  trunk,  and  remarkably 
long  legs,  gave  him  one  half  of  his  advantages  in  the 
noble  science  of  leaping  ;  the  other  half  was  aftei'- 
wards  pointed  out  to  me  by  an  accurate  critic  in  these 
matters  as  lying  in  the  particular  conformation  of 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  235 

his  foot,  the  instep  of  which  is  arched,  and  the  back 
of  the  heel  strengthened  in  so  remarkable  a  way  that 
it  would  be  worth  paying  a  penny  or  so  for  a  sight  of 
them.  It  is  really  laughable  to  think  of  the  cox- 
combry which  eminent  men  of  letters  have  displayed 
in  connection  with  their  powers — real  or  fancied — in 
this  art.  Cardinal  du  Perron  vapoured  to  the  end  of 
his  life  upon  some  remarkable  leap  that  he  either  had 
accomplished,  or  conceived  himself  to  have  accom- 
plished (not,  I  pi-esume,  in  red  stockings).  Every 
tenth  page  of  the  Ferroniana  rings  with  the  echo  of 
this  stupendous  leap — the  length  of  which,  if  I  re- 
member rightly,  is  as  obviously  fabulous  as  any  feat 
of  Don  Belianis  of  Greece.  Des  Cartes  also  had  a 
lurking  conceit  that,  in  some  unknown  place,  he  had 
perpetrated  a  leap  that  ought  to  immortalise  him ; 
and  in  one  of  his  letters  he  repeats  and  accredits  a 
story  of  some  obscure  person's  leap,  which 

'  At  one  light  bound  high  overleaped  all  bound  ' 

of  reasonable  credulity.  INIany  other  eminent  leapers 
might  be  cited,  Pagan  and  Christian  :  but  the  Cardinal, 
by  his  own  account,  appears  to  have  been  the  flower 
of  Popish  leapers ;  and,  with  all  deference  to  his 
Eminence,  upon  a  better  assurance  than  that,  Pro- 
fessor Wilson  may  be  rated,  at  the  time  I  speak  of, 
as  the  flower  of  all  Protestant  leapers.  Kot  having 
the  Cardinal's  foible  of  connecting  any  vanity  with 
this  little  accomplishment,  knowing  exactly  what 
could  and  what  could  not  be  effected  in  this  depart- 
ment of  gymnastics,  and  speaking  with  the  utmost 
simplicity  and  candour  of  his  failm-es  and  his  suc- 
cesses alike,  he  might  always  be  relied  upon,  and  his 


236  DE    QUINCEY. 

statements  were  constantly  in  harmony  with  any  col- 
hiteral  testimony  that  chance  happened  to  turn  up. 

Viewed,  therefore,  by  an  eye  learned  in  gymnastic 
proportions,  Mr.  Wilson  presented  a  somewhat  strik- 
ing figure  :  and  by  some  people  he  w^as  pronounced 
with  emphasis  a  fine  looking  yoang  man  ;  but  others, 
who  less  understood,  or  less  valued  these  advantages, 
spoke  of  him  as  nothing  extraordinary.  Still  greater 
division  of  voices  I  have  heard  on  his  pretensions  to 
be  thought  handsome.  In  my  opinion,  and  most 
certainly  in  his  own,  these  jDretensions  were  but 
slender.  His  complexion  was  too  florid ;  hair  of  a 
hue  quite  unsuited  to  that  complexion  ;  eyes  not  good, 
having  no  apparent  depth,  but  seeming  mere  surfaces  ; 
and  in  fine,  no  one  feature  that  could  be  called  fine, 
except  the  lower  region  of  his  face,  mouth,  chin,  and 
the  parts  adjacent,  which  were  then  (and  perhaps  are 
now)  truly  elegant  and  Ciceronian.  Ask  in  one  of 
your  public  libraries  for  that  little  4to  edition  of  the 
Rlietorical  Works  of  Cicero,  edited  by  Schiitz  (the  same 
who  edited  jEschylus),  and  you  will  there  see  (as  a 
frontispiece  to  the  1st  vol.)  a  reduced  whole  length  of 
Cicero  from  the  antique ;  which  in  the  mouth  and 
chin,  and  indeed  generally,  if  I  do  not  greatly  forget, 
will  give  you  a  lively  representation  of  the  contour 
and  expression  of  Professor  Wilson's  face.  Taken  as 
a  whole,  though  not  handsome  (as  I  have  ah^eady 
said),  when  viewed  in  a  quiescent  state,  the  head  and 
countenance  are  massy,  dignified,  and  expressive  of 
tranquil  sagacity. 

Thus  far  of  Professor  Wilson  in  his  outward  man, 
whom  (to  gratify  you  and  yours,  and  upon  the  con- 
sideration that  my  letter  is  to  cross  the  Atlantic),  I 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  237 

have  described  with  an  eif  ort  and  a  circumstantiation 
that  are  truly  terrific  to  look  back  upon.  And  now, 
returning  to  the  course  of  my  narrative,  such  in 
personal  appearance  was  the  young  man  upon  whom 
my  eyes  suddenly  rested,  for  the  first  time,  upwards 
of  twenty  years  ago,  in  the  study  of  S.  T.  Coleridge — 
looking,  as  I  said  before,  light  as  a  Mercury  to  eyes 
familiar  with  the  British  build ;  but,  with  reference 
to  the  lengthy  model  of  you  Yankees,  who  spindle  up 
so  tall  and  narrow,  already  rather  bulky  and  columnar. 
Note,  however,  that  of  all  this  ari-ay  of  personal 
features,  as  I  have  here  described  them,  I  then  saw 
nothing  at  all,  my  attention  being  altogether  occupied 
with  Mr.  Wilson's  conversation  and  demeanour,  which 
were  in  the  highest  degree  agreeable :  the  points 
which  chiefly  struck  me  being  the  humility  and 
gravity  with  which  he  spoke  of  himself,  his  large 
expansion  of  heart,  and  a  certain  air  of  noble  frank- 
ness which  overspread  everything  he  said  ;  he  seemed 
to  have  an  intense  enjoyment  of  life ;  indeed,  being 
young,  rich,  healthy,  and  full  of  intellectual  activity, 
it  could  not  be  very  wonderful  that  he  should  feel 
happy  and  pleased  with  himself  and  others ;  but  it 
was  somewhat  unusual  to  find  that  so  rare  an  assem- 
blage of  endowments  had  communicated  no  tinge  of 
arrogance  to  his  manner,  or  at  all  disturbed  the 
general  temperance  of  his  mind. 

Turn  we  now  suddenly,  and  without  preparation, — • 
simply  by  way  of  illustrating  the  versatile  humour  of 
the  man, — from  this  grave  and  (as  in  reality  it  was) 
philosophic  scene,  to  another  first  introduction,  under 
most  different  circumstances,  to  the  same  Mr.  Wilson. 
Represent  to  yourself  the  earliest  dawn  of   a  fine 


238  DE    QUINCEY. 

summei"  morning,  time  about  lialf-i^ast  two  o'clock. 
A  young  man,  anxious  for  an  introduction  to  Mi-. 
Wilson,  and  as  yet  pretty  nearly  a  stranger  to  the 
counti-y,  has  taken  up  liis  abode  in  Grasmere,  and 
lias  strolled  out  at  this  early  hour  to  that  rocky  and 
moorish  common  (called  the  White  Moss)  which  ovex-- 
hangs  the  Vale  of  Rydal,  dividing  it  from  Grasmere. 
Looking  southwards  in  the  direction  of  Rydal,  sud- 
denly he  becomes  aware  of  a  huge  beast  advancing  at 
a  long  trot  with  the  heavy  and  thundering  tread  of  a 
hippopotamus  along  the  public  road.  The  creature  is 
soon  arrived  within  half  a  mile  of  his  station  ;  and  by 
the  gray  light  of  morning  is  at  length  made  out  to  be 
a  bull  appai'ently  flying  from  some  unseen  enemy  in 
his  rear.  As  yet,  however,  all  is  mystery ;  but  sud- 
denly three  horsemen  double  a  turn  in  the  road,  and 
come  flying  into  sight  with  the  speed  of  a  hurricane, 
manifestly  in  pursuit  of  the  fugitive  bull ;  the  bull 
labours  to  navigate  his  huge  bulk  to  the  moor,  which 
he  reaches,  and  then  pauses,  panting  and  blowing  out 
clouds  of  smoke  from  his  nostrils,  to  look  back  from 
his  station  amongst  rocks  and  slippery  crags  upon  his 
hunters.  If  he  had  conceited  that  the  rockiness  of 
the  ground  had  secured  his  repose,  the  foolish  bull  is 
soon  undeceived ;  the  horsemen,  scarcely  relaxing 
their  speed,  charge  up  the  hill,  and  speedily  gaining 
the  rear  of  the  bull,  drive  him  at  a  gallop  over  the 
worst  part  of  that  impracticable  ground  down  into 
the  level  ground  below.  At  this  point  of  time  the 
stranger  perceives  by  the  increasing  light  of  the 
morning  that  the  hunters  are  armed  with  immense 
spears  fourteen  feet  long.  With  these  the  bull  is 
soon  dislodged,  and  scouring  down  to  the  plain  below, 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  239 

he  and  the  hunters  at  his  tail  take  to  tlie  common  at 
the  head  of  the  lake,  and  all,  in  the  madness  of  the 
chase,  are  soon  half  engulfed  in  the  swamps  of  the 
morass.  After  plunging  together  for  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes,  all  suddenly  regain  the  terra  Jirma,  and  the 
bull  again  makes  for  the  rocks.  Up  to  this  moment 
there  had  been  the  silence  of  gliosts  ;  and  the  stranger 
had  doubted  whether  the  spectacle  were  not  a  pageant 
of  aerial  spectres,  ghostly  huntsmen,  ghostly  lances, 
and  a  ghostly  bull.  But  just  at  this  crisis — a  voice 
(it  was  the  voice  of  Mr.  Wilson)  shouted  aloud,  '  Turn 
the  villain ;  turn  that  villain  ;  or  he  will  lake  to 
Cumberland.'  The  young  stranger  did  the  service 
required  of  him ;  the  villain  was  turned  and  fled 
southwards ;  the  hunters,  lance  in  rest,  rushed  after 
him ;  all  bowed  their  thanks  as  they  fled  past  him ; 
the  fleet  cavalcade  again  took  the  high  road ;  they 
doubled  the  cape  which  shut  them  out  of  sight ;  and 
in  a  moment  all  had  disappeared  and  left  the  quiet 
valley  to  its  original  silence,  whilst  the  young  stranger 
and  two  grave  Westmoreland  statesmen  (who  by  this 
time  had  come  into  sight  upon  some  accident  or  other) 
stood  wondering  in  siler.ce,  and  saying  to  themselves, 
perhaps, — 

'  The  earth  hath  Inibbles  as  the  water  hath  ; 
And  these  are  of  them  ! ' 

Eut  they  were  no  bubbles ;  the  Inill  was  a  sub- 
stantial bull ;  and  took  no  harm  at  all  from  being 
turned  out  occasionally  at  midnight  for  a  chase  of 
fifteen  or  eighteen  miles.  The  bull,  no  doubt,  used 
to  wonder  at  this  nightly  visitation  ;  and  the  owner 
of  the  bull  must  sometimes  have  pondered  a  little  on 


240  DE    QUINCEY. 

the  draggled  state  in  which  the  swamps  would  now 
and  then  leave  his  beast ;  but  no  other  harm  came  of 
it.  And  so  it  happened,  and  in  the  very  hurly  burly 
of  such  an  vmheard-of  chase,  that  my  friend  Avas 
fortunate  enough,  by  a  little  service,  to  recommend 
himself  to  the  notice  of  Mr.  Wilson ;  and  so  passed 
the  scene  of  his  Jirst  introduction. 

In  reading  the  anecdote  of  the  bull  hunt,  you  must 
bear  in  mind  the  period  of  Mr.  Wilson's  life  to  which 
it  belongs,  else  I  should  here  be  unintentionally 
adding  one  more  to  the  thousand  misrepresentations 
of  his  character,  which  are  already  extant  in  different 
repositories  of  scandal :  most  of  which  I  presume, 
unless  in  the  rarer  cases  where  they  have  been  the 
pure  creations  of  malice,  owe  their  origin  to  a  little 
exaggeration,  and  a  great  deal  of  confusion  in  dates. 
Levities  and  extravagances,  which  find  a  ready  excuse 
at  twenty,  ten  or  fifteen  years  later  are  fatal  to  a 
man's  chai'acter  for  good  sense.  In  such  a  case, 
therefore,  to  be  careless  or  inaccurate  in  dates,  is  a 
moral  dishonesty.  Understand  then  that  the  bull- 
hunting  scenes  belong  to  the  time  which  immediately 
succeeded  my  first  knowledge  of  Mr,  Wilson.  This 
particular  frolic  happened  to  fall  within  the  earliest 
period  of  my  own  personal  acquaintance  with  him. 
Else,  and  with  this  one  exception,  the  era  of  his 
wildest  (and  according  to  the  common  estimate,  of 
his  insane)  extravagances  was  already  past.  All  those 
stories,  therefore,  which  you  question  me  about  with 
so  much  curiosity,  of  his  having  joined  a  company  of 
strolling  players,  and  himself  taken  the  leading  parts 
both  in  Tragedy  and  Comedy — of  his  having  assumed 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  241 

the  garb  of  a  Gipsy,  and  settled  for  some  time  in  a 
Gipsy  encampment,  out  of  admiration  for  a  young 
Egyptian  beauty  ;  with  fifty  others  of  the  same  class, 
belong  undoubtedly  (as  many  of  them  as  are  not 
Avholly  fabulous),  to  the  four  years  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  time  at  which  my  personal  knowledge  of 
Mr.  "Wilson  commenced. 

From  the  latter  end  of  1803  to  the  spring  of  1808, 
Mr.  Wilson  had  studied  at  the  University  of  Oxford ; 
and  it  was  within  that  period  that  most  of  his  esca- 
pades were  crowded.  He  had  previously  studied  as  a 
mere  boy,  according  to  the  Scotch  fashion,  at  the 
University  of  Gla^^gow,  chiefly  under  the  tuition  of 
the  late  Mr.  Jardine  (the  Professor,  I  believe,  of 
Logic),  and  Dr.  or  Mr.  Young  (the  Professor  of 
Greek).  At  both  Universities  he  had  greatly  dis- 
tinguished himself  ;  but  at  Oxford,  where  the  distri- 
bution of  prizes  and  honours  of  every  kind  is  to  the  last 
degree  parsimonious  and  select,  naturally  it  follows 
that  such  academical  distinctions  are  really  significant 
distinctions,  and  proclaim  an  unequivocal  merit  in 
him  who  has  carried  them  off  from  a  crowd  of  1600 
or  2000  co-rivals,  to  whom  the  contest  was  open  ; 
whereas,  in  the  Scotch  Universities,  as  I  am  told  by 
Scotchmen,  the  multiplication  of  prizes  and  medals, 
and  the  almost  indiscriminate  profusion  with  which 
they  are  showered  abroad,  neutralises  their  whole 
effect  and  value.  At  least  this  was  the  case  in  Mr. 
Wilson's  time  ;  but  lately  some  conspicuous  changes 
have  been  introduced  by  a  Royal  Commission  (not 
yet,  I  believe,  dissolved)  into  one  at  least  of  the 
Scotch  Universities,  which  have  greatly  improved  it 
in  this  respect,  by  bringing  it  much  nearer  to   the 

VOL.  I.  Q 


242  DE    QUINCEY, 

English  model.  When  Mr.  Wilson  gained  a  prize  of 
fifty  guineas  for  fifty  lines  of  English  verse,  withoiit 
further  inquiry  it  becomes  evident,  from  the  mere 
rarity  of  the  distinction  which,  for  a  university  now 
neaidy  of  five  thousand  members,  occurs  but  once  a  year, 
and  from  the  great  over-proportion  of  that  peculiar 
class  (the  Undergraduates)  to  whom  the  contest  is 
open, — that  such  a  victory  was  an  indisputable  criterion 
of  very  conspicuous  merit.  In  fact,  never  in  any 
place  did  Mr.  Wilson  play  off  his  Proteus  variety  of 
character  and  talent  with  so  much  brilliant  effect 
as  at  Oxford.  In  this  great  University,  the  most 
ancient,  and  by  many  degrees  the  most  magnificent 
in  the  world,  he  found  a  stage  for  display,  perfectly  con- 
genial with  the  native  elevation  of  his  own  character. 
Perhaps  you  are  not  fully  aware  of  the  characteristic 
differences  which  separate  our  two  English  Univer- 
sities of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  from  those  of  Scot- 
land and  the  Continent :  for  I  have  always  observed 
that  the  best  informed  foreigners,  even  after  a  week's 
personal  acquaintance  with  the  Oxford  system,  still 
adhere  to  the  inveterate  preconceptions  which  they 
had  brought  with  them  from  the  Continent.  Eor 
instance,  they  continue  obstinately  to  speak  of  the 
Professors  as  the  persons  to  whom  the  students  are 
indebted  for  tuition ;  whereas  the  majority  of  these 
hold  their  offices  as  the  most  absolute  sinecure?,  and 
the  task  of  tuition  devolves  upon  the  tutors  appointed 
in  each  particular  college.  These  tutors  are  called 
public  tutors ;  meaning  that  they  do  not  confine  their 
instructions  to  any  one  individual ;  but  disti'ibute 
them  amongst  all  the  Undergraduates  of  the  college 
to  which    they   belong ;    and,    in  addition    to    these, 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  243 

jyrivate  tutors  are  allowed  to  any  student  who  chooses 
to  increase  his  expenditure  in  that  particular.  But 
the  main  distinction,  which  applies  to  our  immediate 
subject,  is  the  more  than  regal  provision  for  the 
lotlging  and  accommodation  of  the  students  by  the 
system  of  Colleges.  Of  these  there  are  in  Oxford, 
neglecting  the  technical  subdivision  of  Halls,  five-and- 
twenty  ;  and  the  main  use  of  all,  both  colleges  and 
halls,  is,  not  as  in  Scotland  and  on  the  Continent,  to 
lodge  the  head  of  the  University  with  suitable  dignity, 
and  to  provide  rooms  for  the  library  and  public  busi- 
ness of  the  University.  These  purjwses  are  met  by  a 
sepai-ate  provision,  distinct  from  the  colleges  ;  and  the 
colleges  are  applied  as  follows  :  1st,  and  mainly  to 
the  reception  of  the  Fellows,  and  of  the  Under- 
graduate Students ;  2ndly,  to  the  accommodation  of 
the  head  (known  in  different  colleges  by  the  several 
designations  of  provost,  principal,  dean,  rector,  warden, 
tfec);  3rdly  to  the  accommodation  of  the  private  library 
attached  to  that  college,  and  to  the  chapel,  which  is 
vised  at  least  twice  every  day  for  public  prayers ; 
4thly,  to  the  Hall,  and  the  whole  establishment  of 
kitchen,  wine  vaults,  buttery,  &c.,  &c.,  which  may  be 
supposed  necessary  for  the  liberal  accommodation,  at 
the  public  meals  of  dinner  [and  in  some  colleges 
supper]  of  gentlemen  and  visitors  from  the  countrj'-, 
or  from  the  Continent;  varying  (we  will  suppose) 
from  25  to  500  heads.  Everywhere  else  the  great 
mass  of  the  students  are  lodged  in  obscure  nooks 
and  corners,  which  may  or  may  not  be  respectable, 
but  are  at  all  events  withdrawn  from  the  surveillance 
of  the  University.  I  shall  state  both  the  ground  and 
the  effect  (or  tendency  rather)  of  this  difference.    Out 

Q  2 


244  DE    QUINCEY. 

of  England,  universities  are  not  meant  exclusively 
for  professional  men ;  the  sons  of  great  landholders, 
and  a  large  proportion  of  the  sons  of  noblemen,  either 
go  through  the  same  academic  course  as  others — or  a 
shorter  coui'se  adapted  to  their  particular  circum- 
stances. In  England,  again,  the  church  is  supplied 
from  the  rank  of  gentry — not  exclusively,  it  is  true, 
but  in  a  much  larger  proportion  than  anywhere  else, 
except  in  Ireland.  The  corresponding  ranks  in  Scot- 
land, fi^om  their  old  connection  with  France,  have 
adopted  (I  believe)  much  more  of  the  Continental  plan 
for  disposing  of  their  sons  at  this  period.  At  any  rate, 
it  will  not  be  contended  by  any  man,  that  Scotland 
throws  anything  like  the  same  proportion  with  Eng- 
land, of  her  gentry  and  her  peerage  into  her  uni. 
versities.  Hence,  a  higher  standard  of  manners  and 
of  habits  presides  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  ;  and,  con- 
sequently, a  demand  for  much  higher  accommodations 
would  even  otherwise  have  arisen,  had  not  such  a 
demand  already  been  supplied  by  the  munificence  of 
our  English  piinces  and  peers,  both  male  and  female ; 
and,  in  one  instance  at  least,  of  a  Scottish  Prince 
(Baliol).  The  extent  of  these  vast  Caravanseras 
enables  the  governors  of  tlie  various  colleges  to 
furnish  every  student  with  a  set  of  two  rooms  at 
the  least,  often  with  a  suite  of  three — [I,  who  lived  at 
Oxford  on  no  more  than  my  school  allowance,  had 
that  number] — or  in  many  cases  with  far  more.  In 
the  superior  colleges,  indeed  (sujDerior,  I  mean,  as  to 
their  purse  and  landed  endowments),  all  these  accom- 
modations keep  pace  with  the  refinements  of  the  age ; 
and  thus  a  connection  is  maintained  between  the 
University  and  the  landed  Noblesse — upper  and  lower 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  245 

— of  England,  which  must  be  reciprocally  beneficial, 
and  which,  under  other  circumstances,  could  scarcely 
have  taken  place. 

Of  these  advantages,  you  may  be  sure,  that  Mr. 
Wilson  availed  himself  to  the  utmost  extent.  Instead 
of  going  to  Baliol  College,  he  entered  himself  at 
Magdahii,  in  the  class  of  what  ai'e  called,  '  Gentle- 
men Commoners.'  All  of  us  (you  know)  in  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  wear  an  Academic  dress,  which  tells 
at  once  our  Academic  rank  with  all  its  modifications. 
And  the  term  '  Gentlemen  Commoner  '  implies  that  he 
has  more  splendid  costumes,  and  more  in  number ; 
that  he  is  expected  to  spend  a  good  deal  more  money, 
that  he  enjoys  a  few  triding  immunities ;  and  that  he 
has,  in  particular  instances,  something  like  a  King's 
right  of  preemption,  as  in  the  choice  of  rooms,  &c. 

Once  launched  in  this  orbit,  INIr.  Wilson  continued 
to  blaze  away  for  the  four  successive  years,  1804, 
1805,  1806,  1807,  I  believe  without  any  intermission. 
Possibly  I  myself  was  the  one  sole  gownsman  who 
had  not  then  found  my  attention  fixed  by  his  most 
heterogeneous  reputation.  In  a  similar  case,  Cicero 
tells  a  man  that  ignorance  so  unaccountable  of  an- 
other man's  pretensions  argued  himself  to  be  a  homo 
ignorabllis  ;  or,  in  the  language  of  the  Miltonic  Satan, 
'  Not  to  know  me,  argues  thyself  unknown.'  And 
that  is  true ;  a  homo  ignorabllis  most  certainly  I  was. 
And  even  with  that  admission  it  is  still  difficult  to 
account  for  the  extent  and  the  duration  of  my  ignor- 
ance. The  fact  is,  that  the  case  well  expresses  both 
our  positions  ;  that  he  should  be  so  conspicuous  as  to 
challenge  knowledge  from  the  most  sequestered  of 
anchorites  expresses  his  life;  that  I  should  have  right 


246  DE    QUINCEY. 

to  absolute  ignorance  of  him  who  was  familiar  as  day- 
light to  all  the  rest  of  Oxford — expresses  7nine.  Never 
indeei  before,  to  judge  from  what  I  have  since  heard 
upon  inquiry,  did  a  man,  by  variety  of  talents  and 
variety  of  humours,  contrive  to  place  himself  as  the 
connecting  link  between  orders  of  men  so  essentially 
re]  ulsive  of  each  other — as  Mr.  Wilson  in  this  instance. 

'  Omnis  Aristippum  clecuit  color  et  status,  et  res.' 

From  the  learned  px^esident  of  his  college.  Dr. 
Routh,  the  editor  of  pai-ts  of  Plato,  and  of  some 
Theological  /Selections,  with  whom  Wilson  enjoyed  an 
unlimited  favour — from  this  learned  Academic  Doctor, 
and  many  others  of  the  same  class,  Wilson  had  an 
iufiuite  gamut  of  friends  and  associates,  running 
through  every  key ;  and  the  diapason  closing  full  in 
groom,  cobbler,  stable-boy,  barber's  apprentice,  with 
every  shade  and  hue  of  blackguard  and  ruffian.  In 
particular,  amongst  this  latter  kind  of  worshipful 
society,  there  was  no  man  who  had  any  talents — real 
or  fancied— for  thumping  or  being  thumped,  but  had 
experienced  some  ^>ree^?^(7  of  his  merits  from  Mr. 
Wilson,  All  other  pretensions  in  the  gymnastic  arts 
he  took  a  pride  in  humbling  or  in  honouring  ;  but 
chiefly  his  examinations  fell  upon  jjugilism ;  and  not 
a  man,  who  could  either  '  give '  or  '  take,'  but  boasted 
to  have  punished,  or  to  have  been  punished  by, 
Wilson  of  Malleus* 

A  little  before  the  time  at  which  my  acquaintance 

*  The  usual  colloquial  corruption  of  Magdalen  in  Ox.  is 
3Iaicdli?i ;  but  amongst  the  very  lie  diqxuple,  it  is  called 
3IaUe7iii. 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  247 

with  Mr.  Wilson  commenced,  he  had  purchased  a 
beautiful  estate  on  the  lake  of  Windermere,  which 
bore  the  ancient  name  of  Elleray — a  name  which, 
with  his  customary  good  taste,  Mr.  Wilson  has  never 
disturbed.  With  the  usual  latitude  of  language  in 
such  cases,  1  say  on  Windermere ;  but  in  fact  this 
charming  estate  lies  far  above  the  lake  ;  and  one  of 
the  most  interesting  of  its  domestic  features  is  the 
foreground  of  the  rich  landscape  which  connects,  by 
the  most  gentle  scale  of  declivities,  this  almost  aerial 
altitude  [as,  for  habitable  ground,  it  really  is]  with  the 
sylvan  margin  of  the  deep  water  which  rolls  a  mile 
and  a  half  below.  When  I  say  a  mile  and  a  half, 
you  will  understand  me  to  compute  the  descent  accord- 
ing to  the  undulations  of  the  ground ;  because  else 
the  perpendicular  elevation  above  the  level  of  the 
lake  cannot  be  above  one  half  of  that  extent.  Seated 
on  such  an  eminence,  but  yet  surrounded  by  fore- 
grounds of  such  quiet  beauty,  and  settling  down- 
wards towards  the  lake  by  such  tranquil  steps  as  to 
take  away  every  feeling  of  precipitous  or  dangerous 
elevation,  Elleray  possesses  a  double  character  of 
beauty,  rarely  found  in  connection ;  and  yet  each, 
by  singular  good  fortune,  in  this  case  absolute  and 
unrivalled  in  its  kind.  Within  a  bow-shot  of  each 
other  may  be  found  stations  of  the  deepest  seclusion, 
fenced  in  by  verdurous  walls  of  insuperable  forest 
heights,  and  presenting  a  limited  scene  of  beauty — 
deep,  solemn,  noiseless,  severely  sequestered — and 
other  stations  of  a  magnificence  so  gorgeous  as  few 
estates  in  this  island  can  boast,  and  of  those  few  per- 
haps none  in  such  close  connection  with  a  dwelling- 
house.     Stepping  out  from  the  very  windows  of  the 


248  DE    QUINCEY. 

drawing-room,  you  find  yourself  on  a  terrace  ■wliicli 
gives  you  the  feeling  of  a  *  specular  height,'  such  as 
you  might  expect  on  Ararat,  or  might  appropriately 
conceive  on  '  Athos  seen  from  Samothrace.'  The  whole 
course  of  a  noble  lake,  about  eleven  miles  long,  lies 
subject  to  your  view,  with  many  of  its  islands,  and 
its  two  opposite  shores  so  different  in  character — the 
one  stern,  precipitous,  and  gloomy ;  the  other  (and 
luckily  the  hither  one)  by  the  mere  bounty  of  nature 
and  of  accident — by  the  happy  disposition  of  the 
ground  originally,  and  by  the  fortunate  equilibrium 
between  the  sylvan  tracts,  meandering  irregularly 
through  the  whole  district,  and  the  proportion  left  to 
verdant  fields  and  meadows, — wearing  the  character 
of  the  richest  park  scenery ;  except  indeed  that  this 
character  is  here  and  there  a  little  modified  by  a  quiet 
hedge-row  or  the  stealing  smoke  which  betrays  the 
embowered  cottage  of  a  labourer.  But  the  sublime, 
peculiar,  and  not-to-be-forgotten  feature  of  the  scene  is 
the  great  system  of  mountains  which  unite  about  five 
miles  off  at  the  head  of  the  lake  to  lock  in  and  inclose 
this  noble  landscape.  The  several  ranges  of  mountains 
which  stand  at  various  distances  within  six  or  seven 
miles  of  the  little  town  of  Ambleside,  all  separately 
various  in  their  forms  and  all  eminently  picturesque, 
when  seen  from  EUeray  appear  to  blend  and  group 
as  parts  of  one  connected  whole ;  and  when  their 
usual  drapery  of  clouds  happens  to  take  a  fortunate 
arrangement,  and  the  sunlights  are  properly  broken 
and  thrown  from  the  most  suitable  quarter  of  the 
heavens, — -I  cannot  recollect  any  spectacle  in  England 
or  "Wales,  of  the  many  hundreds  I  have  seen,  bearing 
a  local,  if  not  a  national  reputation  for  magnificence  of 


SKETCH   OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  249 

prospect,  Avbich  so  much  dilates  tlie  lieart  witli  a  sense 
of  power  and  aerial  sublimity  as  this  terrace  view 
from  Elleray,     It  is  possible  that  I  may  have  stood 
on  other  mountain  terraces  commanding  as  ample  a 
view  and  as  happily  combined  ;   but  the  difference  of 
effect  must  always  be  immense  between  a  spectacle 
to  which  you  ascend  by  half  a  day's  labour,  and  that 
upon  which  you  are  launched  in  a  second  of  time 
from  the  breakfast  table.     It  is  of  great  importance, 
for  the  enjoyment  of  any  natural  scene,  to  be  liber- 
ated from  the  necessity  of  viewing  it  under  circum- 
stances of  haste  and  anxiety,  to  have  it  in  one's  power 
to  surrender  oneself  passively  and  tranquilly  to  the 
influences   of    the   objects  as    they    gi-adually  reveal 
themselves,  and  to  be  under  no  summons  to  crowd 
one's  whole  visual  energy  and  task  of   examination 
within  a  single  quarter  of   an    hour.     Having  seen 
Elleray  at  all  times  under  these  favourable  circum- 
stances, it   is  certainly  not    impossible  that    I    may 
unconsciously  have  overrated  in  some  degree  its  pre- 
tensions  in    comparison  with    some  rival    scenes.     I 
may  have  committed  the  common  error  of  attributing 
to  the  objects  the  whole  sum  of  an  impression  which 
in  part  belonged  to  the  subjective  advantages  of  the 
contemplator  and  the  benefits  of    his  station.     But, 
making  every  allowance  in  this  direction,  I  am  still 
of  opinion  that  Elleray  has,  in  connection  with  the 
merits   common    to   all    scenes    of    its    class,    others 
peculiar  to  itself — and  such  as  are  indispensable  con- 
ditions   for  the  full  effect  of  all    the  rest.     In  par- 
ticular, I  would  instance  this  :    To  bring  any  scene 
upon  a  level  of  competition  with   Elleray  as  to  range 
and  majesty  of  prospect,  it  is  absolutely  essential  that 


250  DE    QUINCEY. 

it  should  occupy  an  equal  elevation,  or  one  not  con- 
spicuously inferior.  Now,  it  is  seldom  indeed  that 
eminences  so  commanding  are  not,  by  that  very 
circumstance,  unfitted  to  the  picturesque  aspects  of 
things  :  in  fact  I  remember  no  tract  of  ground  so 
elevated  as  Elleray  from  which  the  lowest  level  of 
the  adjacent  country  does  not  take  a  petty,  dotted, 
and  map-like  appearance.  But  this  effect,  which  is 
so  heavy  a  price  for  the  sublimities  of  the  upper 
regions,  at  Elleray  is  entirely  intercepted  by  the 
exquisite  gradations  of  descent  by  which  the  con- 
tiguous grounds  begin  their  fall  to  the  level  of  the 
lake :  the  moment  that  this  fall  in  any  quarter 
becomes  accelerated  and  precipitous,  it  is  concealed 
by  the  brows  of  this  beautiful  hanging  foreground ; 
and  so  happily  is  this  remedy  applied,  that  in  every 
instance  where  the  lowest  grounds  would,  if  seen  at 
all,  from  their  immediate  proximity,  be  seen  by  the 
spectator  looking  down  perpendiculaiiy  as  into  a  well, 
there  they  are  uniformly  hidden ;  and  these  lowest 
levels  first  emerge  to  view  at  a  remote  distance — 
where,  being  necessarily  viewed  obliquely,  they  suffer 
no  peculiar  disadvantage  by  being  viewed  from  an 
eminence.  In  short,  to  sum  up  the  whole  in  one 
word,  the  splendovu\s  of  Elleray,  which  could  not  have 
been  had  but  at  an  unusual  elevation,  are  by  a  rare 
bounty  of  nature  obtained  without  one  of  those  sacri- 
fices for  the  learned  eye  which  are  usually  entailed 
upon  that  one  single  advantage  of  unusual  elevation. 
The  beautiful  estate,  which  I  have  thus  described 
to  you,  was  ornamented  by  no  suitable  dwelling-house 
at  the  time  when  it  was  purchased  by  Mr.  "Wilson : 
there  was  indeed  a  rustic  cottage,  most  picturesquely 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    AVILSOX.  251 

situated,  which,  with  the  addition  of  a  drawing-voom 
thrown  out  at  one  end,  was  made  for  the  present 
(and,  as  it  turned  out,  for  many  a  year  to  come) 
capable  of  meeting  the  hospitable  system  of  life 
adopted  by  its  owaier.  But,  with  a  view  to  more 
ample  and  luxui-ious  accommodations,  even  at  that 
early  pex-iod  of  his  possession  (1808),  Mr.  Wilson 
began  to  build  a  mansion  of  larger  and  more  elegant 
proportions.  Tlie  shell,  and  perhaps  the  greater  part 
of  the  internal  work,  was  soon  finished  ;  but  for  some 
reason,  which  I  never  remember  to  have  inquired 
into,  was  not  rendered  thoroughly  habitable  (and 
consequently  not  inhabited)  till  the  year  1825.  I 
think  it  worth  while  to  mention  this  liouse  particu- 
larly, because  it  has  always  appeared  to  me  a  silent 
commentary  on  its  master's  state  of  mind,  and  an 
exemplificatioQ  of  his  character  both  as  it  was  and 
as  it  appeared.  At  first  sight  there  was  an  air  of 
adventui'ousness,  or  even  of  extravagance  about  the 
plan  and  situation  of  the  building ;  and  yet  upon  a 
considerate  examination  (and  latterly  upon  a  practical 
trial)  of  it,  I  cannot  see  that  within  the  same  dimen- 
sions it  would  have  been  possible  to  have  contrived 
a  more  judicious  or  commodious  house.  Thus,  for 
instanci,  the  house  is  planted  upon  the  boldest  and 
most  exposed  point  of  ground  that  can  be  found  on 
the  whole  estate,  consequently  upon  that  which  might 
have  presumed  (and  I  believe  was  really  reputed)  to 
be  the  very  stormiest :  yet,  whether  from  counter- 
acting screens  of  wood  that  have  since  been  reared  in 
fortunate  situations,  or  from  what  other  cause  I  know 
not,  but  undoubtedly  at  this  day  no  practical  incon- 
venience is  suffered ;  though  it  is  true,  I  believe,  tliat 


959 


DE    QUINCEY. 


in  the  earlier  yeai-s  of  its  history,  the  house  bore 
witness  occasionally,  by  dismal  wrecks  of  roof  and 
windows,  to  the  strength  and  fury  of  the  wind  on 
one  particular  quarter.  Again,  in  the  internal  arrange- 
ments one  room  was  constructed  of  such  ample  pro- 
portions, with  a  view  to  dancing,  that  the  length 
(as  I  remember)  was  about  seventy  feet ;  the  other 
dimensions  I  have  forgotten.  Now,  in  this  instance 
most  people  saw  an  evidence  of  nothing  but  youthful 
extravagance,  and  a  most  disproportionate  attention 
directed  to  one  single  purpose,  which  upon  that  scale 
could  not  probably  be  of  very  frequent  occurrence  in 
any  family.  This  by  the  Avay  was  at  any  rate  a 
sensible  extravagance  in  my  judgment ;  for  our 
English  mode  of  building  tends  violently  to  the  oppo- 
site and  most  unwholesome  extravagance  of  giving 
to  the  very  principal  room  of  a  house  the  beggarly 
proportions  of  closets.  However,  the  sequel  showed 
that  in  providing  for  one  end,  Mr.  Wilson  had  not 
lost  sight  of  others  :  for  the  seventy-feet  room  was  so 
divided  by  strong  folding-doors,  or  temporary  par- 
titions, as  in  its  customary  state  to  exhibit  three 
rooms  of  ordinary  pi-oportions,  and  unfolded  its  full 
extent  only  by  special  and  extraordinary  mechanism. 
Other  instances  I  might  give  in  which  the  plan  seemed 
to  be  extravagant  or  inconsiderate,  and  yet  really 
turned  out  to  have  been  calculated  with  the  coolest 
judgment  and  the  nicest  foresight  of  domestic  needs. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  I  do  not  know  a  house 
apparently  more  commodiously  arranged  than  this, 
which  was  planned  and  built  with  utmost  precipita- 
tion, and  in  the  very  heyday  of  a  most  tempestuous 
youth.     In  one  thing  only,  ujion  a  retrospect  at  this 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  253 

day  of  the  whole  case,  there  may  appear  to  have  been 
some  imprudence,  viz.  that  timber  being  then  at  a 
most  unprecedented  high  price,  it  is  probable  that 
the  building  cost  seven  or  eight  hundred  pounds  more 
than  it  would  have  done  a  few  years  later.  Allowing 
for  this  one  oversight,  the  principal  house  on  the 
Elleray  estate,  which  at  the  time  was  looked  upon  as 
an  evidence  of  Mr.  Wilson's  flightiness  of  mind, 
remains  at  this  day  a  lasting  monument  of  his  good 
sense  and  judgment. 

Whilst  I  justify  him,  however,  on  this  head,  I  am 
obliged  to  admit  that  on  another  field,  at  that  very 
time,  Mr.  Wilson  was  displaying  the  most  reckless 
profusion.  A  sailing  club  had  been  established  on 
Windermere,  by  whom  I  never  heard ;  very  probably 
by  Mr.  Wilson  himself ;  at  all  events,  he  was  the 
leader  and  the  soul  of  the  confederation ;  and  he 
applied  annually  nothing  less  than  a  little  foi'tune  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  many  expenses  which  arose 
out  of  it.  Amongst  the  members  of  the  club  there 
were  more  than  one  who  had  far  larger  fortianes  than 
Mr.  Wilson  coixld  ever  have  possessed ;  but  he  would 
pei'mit  no  one  to  outshine  him  on  this  arena.  The 
number  of  his  boats  was  so  great  as  to  compose  a 
little  fleet ;  and  some  of  them,  of  unusually  large 
dimensions  for  this  lake,  had  been  built  at  an  enormous 
expense  by  regular  builders  brought  over  expressly 
from  the  port  of  Whitehaven  (distant  from  Elleray 
about  forty-five  miles),  and  kept  during  the  whole 
progress  of  their  labour  at  a  most  expensive  Lakers' 
hotel.  One  of  these  boats  in  particular,  a  ten-oared 
barge,  which  you  will  find  specially  introduced  by 
name  in   Professor  Wilson's   tale   of    The   Foresters 


254  DE    QUINCEY. 

{vide  p.  215),  was  generally  believed  at  the  time  to 
Jiave  cost  him  at  the  least  five  hundred  pounds.  And 
as  the  number  of  sailors  which  it  required  to  man 
these  boats  was  necessarily  very  great  at  particular 
seasons,  and  as  the  majority  of  these  sailors  lived? 
during  the  period  of  their  services,  with  little  or  no 
restraint  upon  their  expenses  at  the  most  costly  inn 
in  the  neighbourhood, — it  may  be  supposed  very 
readily  that  about  this  time  Mr.  Wilson's  lavish 
expenditure,  added  to  the  demands  of  architects  and 
builders,  and  the  recent  purchase  of  Elleray,  must 
have  seriously  injured  his  patrimonial  pvoj)erty, — 
though  generally  believed  to  have  been  originally  con- 
siderably more  than  thirty  thousand  (many  asserted 
forty  thousand)  pounds.  In  fact,  he  had  never  less 
than  three  establishments  going  on  concurrently  for 
some  years ;  one  at  the  town  or  village  of  Bowness 
(the  little  port  of  the  lake  of  Windermere),  for  his 
boatmen ;  one  at  the  Ambleside  Hotel,  about  five 
miles  distant,  for  himself ;  and  a  third  at  Elleray,  for 
his  servants,  and  the  occasional  resort  of  himself  and 
his  friends.  It  is  the  opinion  of  some  people  that 
about  this  time,  and  during  the  succeeding  two  years, 
Mr.  Wilson  dissipated  the  main  bulk  of  his  patrimony 
in  profuse  expenditure.  But  more  considerate  people 
see  no  ground  for  that  opinion :  his  expenses,  though 
great,  were  never  adequate  to  the  dilapidation  of  so 
large  an  estate  as  he  was  reputed  to  have  inherited  : 
and  the  prevailing  opinion  is  that  some  great  loss  of 
£20,000  at  a  blow,  by  the  failure  of  some  trustee  or 
other,  was  the  true  cause  of  that  diminution  in  his 
property  which,  within  a  year  or  two  from  this  time, 
he  is  generally  supposed  to  have  suffered.     However, 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  250 

as  Mr.  Wilson  himself  has  always  maintained  an 
obstinate  silence  on  the  subject,  and  as  the  mere  fact 
of  the  loss  (however  probable)  is  not  more  accurately 
known  to  me  than  its  extent,  or  its  particular  mode, 
or  its  cause, — I  shall  not  allow  myself  to  make  any 
conjectural  speculations  on  the  subject.  It  can  be 
interesting  to  you  and  me  only  from  one  of  its  con- 
seqviences,  viz.  its  leading  him  afterwards  to  seek  a 
professorship :  for  most  certain  it  is,  that,  if  the 
splendour  of  Mr.  Wilson's  youthful  condition  as  to 
pecuniary  matters  had  not  been  in  some  lemarkable 
degree  overcast,  and  suffered  some  signal  eclipse,  he 
would  never  have  surrendered  any  part  of  that  perfect 
liberty  which  was  so  dear  to  him,  for  all  the  honours 
and  rewards  that  could  have  been  offered  by  the 
foremost  universities  of  Europe. 

You  will  have  heard,  no  doubt,  from  some  of  those 
with  whom  you  conversed  about  Professor  Wilson 
when  you  were  in  Euro{)e,  or  you  may  have  read  it 
in  Peter's  Letters,  that  in  very  early  life  (probably 
about  the  age  of  eighteen)  he  had  formed  a  scheme 
for  penetrating  into  central  Africa,  visiting  the  city 
of  Tombuctoo,  and  solving  (if  it  were  possible)  the 
great  outstanding  problem  of  the  course  of  the  Niger. 
To  this  scheme  he  was  attracted  probably  not  so  much 
by  any  particular  interest  in  the  improvement  of 
geographical  knowledge,  as  by  the  youthful  spirit  of 
romantic  adventure,  and  a  very  uncommon  craving 
for  whatever  was  grand — indetiuite — and  gigantic  in 
conception,  supposing  that  it  required  at  the  same 
time  great  physical  powers  in  the  execution.  Thei-e 
cannot  be  a  doubt  for  us  at  this  day,  who  look  back 
upon  the  melancholy  list  of  victims  in  this  perilous 


256  DE    QUINCEY. 

field  cf  discovery  which  has  been  furnished  by  the 
two  or  three  and  twenty  years  elapsed  since  Mr. 
Wilson's  plan  was  in  agitation,  that  in  that  enterprise 
— had  he  ever  irretrievably  embarked  himself  upon 
it — he  would  infallibly  have  perished ;  for,  though 
reasonably  strong,  he  was  not  strong  upon  that 
heroic  scale  which  an  expedition  so  Titanic  demands ; 
and  what  was  perhaps  still  more  important,  if  strong 
enough — -he  was  not  hardy  enough,  as  a  gentleman 
rarely  is,  more  especially  where  he  has  literary  habits  ; 
because  the  exposure  to  open  air,  which  is  the  indis- 
pensable condition  of  hardiness,  is  at  any  i^ate  inter- 
rupted— even  if  it  were  not  counteracted — by  the 
luxurious  habits  and  the  relaxing  atmosphere  of  the 
library  and  the  drawing-room.  Moreover,  Mr,  Wilson's 
constitution  was  irritable  and  disposed  to  fever ;  his 
temperament  was  too  much  that  of  a  man  of  genius 
not  to  have  furnished  a  mine  of  inflammable  materials 
for  any  tropical  climate ;  his  prudence,  as  regarded 
his  health,  was  not  remarkable ;  and  if  to  all  these 
internal  and  personal  grounds  of  danger  you  add  the 
incalculable  hazards  of  the  road  itself,  every  friend  of 
Mr.  Wilson's  must  have  rejoiced  on  hearing  that  in 
1808,  when  I  first  met  him,  this  Tim-  (or  Tom-)  buctoo 
scheme  was  already  laid  aside. 

Yet,  as  the  stimulus  of  danger,  in  one  shape  or 
other,  was  at  that  time  of  life  perhaps  essential  to  his 
comfort,  he  soon  substituted  another  scheme,  which 
at  this  day  might  be  accomplished  with  ease  and 
safety  enough,  but  in  the  year  1809  (under  the 
rancorous  system  of  Bonaparte)  was  full  of  hazard. 
In  this  scheme  he  was  so  good  as  to  associate  myself 
as  one  of  his  travelling  companions,  together  with  an 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  257 

earlier  friend  of  his  own — an  Englishman,  of  a  pluloso- 
phical  turn  of  mind,  with  whom  he  had  been  a  fellow- 
student  at  Glasgow  ;  and  we  were  certainly  all  three 
of  an  age  and  character  to  have  enjoyed  the  expedition 
in  the  very  highest  degree,  had  the  events  of  the  war 
allowed  us  to  realise  our  plan.  The  plan  was  as 
follows :  from  Falmouth,  by  one  of  the  regular 
packets,  we  wei'e  to  have  sailed  to  the  Tagus  ;  and, 
landing  wherever  accident  should  allow  us,  to  pur- 
chase mules — hire  Spanish  servants — and  travel  ex- 
tensively in  Spain  and  Portugal  for  eight  or  nine 
months ;  thence,  by  such  of  the  islands  in  the  Medi- 
terranean as  particularly  interested  us,  we  were 
gradually  to  have  passed  into  Greece,  and  thence  to 
Constantinople.  Finally,  we  were  to  have  visited 
the  Troad,  Syria,  Egypt,  and  perhaps  Nubia.  I  feel 
it  almost  ludicrous  to  sketch  the  outline  of  so  exten- 
sive a  tour,  no  part  of  which  was  ever  executed  ;  such 
a  Barmacide  feast  is  laughable  in  the  very  rehearsal. 
Yet  it  is  bare  justice  to  ourselves  to  say  that  on  our 
parts  there  was  no  slackness  or  make-believe :  what 
put  an  extinguisher  upon  our  project  was  the  entrance 
of  Napoleon  into  Spain,  his  immediate  advance  upon 
Madrid,  and  the  wretched  catastrophe  of  the  expe- 
dition so  miserably  misconducted  under  Sir  John 
Moore.  The  jyrestige  of  Fi'ench  generalship  was  at 
that  time  a  nightmare  upon  the  courage  and  spirit  of 
hopeful  exertion  throughout  Europe  ;  and  the  earliest 
dawn  was  only  then  beginning  to  arise  of  that  glorious 
experience  which  was  for  ever  to  dissolve  it.  Sir  J. 
Moore,  and  through  him  his  gallant  but  unfortunate 
army,  was  the  last  conspicuous  victim  to  the  mere 
sound    and    humbug    (if    you    will    excuse    a   coarse 

VOL.   I,  E 


L'OO  DE    QUINCEY. 

expression)  of  the  words  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  What 
he  fled  from  was  precisely  those  two  words.  And  the 
timid  policy,  adopted  by  Sir  John  on  that  memorable 
occasion,  would — among  other  greater  and  national 
consequences — have  had  this  little  collateral  interest 
to  us  unfortunate  travellers,  had  our  movements  been 
as  speedy  as  we  had  anticipated,  that  it  would  have 
cost  us  our  heads.  A  certain  bulletin,  issued  by 
Bonaparte  at  that  time,  sufficiently  apprised  us  of 
that  little  truth.  In  this  bulletin  Bonaparte  pro- 
claimed with  a  careless  air,  but  making  at  the  same 
time  somewhat  of  a  boast  of  it,  that  having  happened 
to  meet  a  party  of  sixteen  British  travellers — persons 
of  whom  he  had  ascertained  nothing  at  all  but  that 
they  did  not  bear  a  military  character — he  had  issued 
a  summary  order  that  they  should  all  be  strung  up 
without  loss  of  time  by  the  neck.  In  this  little 
facetious  anecdote,  as  Bonaparte  seemed  to  think  it, 
we  read  the  fate  that  we  had  escaped.  Had  nothing 
occurred  to  retard  our  departure  from  this  country, 
we  calculated  that  the  route  we  had  laid  down  for 
our  daily  motions  would  have  brought  us  to  Guad- 
arama  (or  what  was  the  name  of  the  pass  ?)  just  in 
time  to  be  hanged.  Having  a  British  general  at  our 
backs  with  an  army  of  more  than  thirty  thousand 
effective  men,  we  should  certainly  have  roamed  in 
advance  with  perfect  reliance  upon  the  old  British 
policy  of  fighting,  for  which  we  could  never  have 
allowed  ourselves  to  dream  of  such  a  substitute  as 
a  flight  through  all  the  passes  of  Gallicia  on  the 
princi[>le  of  '  the  D —  tal-e  the  hindmost.^  Infallibly 
also  we  should  have  been  surprised  by  the  extra- 
ordinary rapidity  at  that  time  of  the  French  move- 


SKETCH    OF    PEOFESSOR    WILSO>f.  259 

ments ;  our  miserable  shambling  mules,  with  their 
accursed  tempers,  would  have  made  but  a  shabby 
attempt  at  flight  before  a  squadron  of  light  cavalry  ; 
and  in  short,  as  I  said  before,  we  should  have  come 
just  in  time  to  be  hanged.  And  hanged  we  should 
all  have  been  :  though  w/it/,  and  upon  what  principle, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  say  ;  and  probably  that  question 
would  have  been  left  to  after  consideration  in  some 
more  philosophical  age.  You  will  suppose  naturally 
that  we  rejoiced  at  our  escape ;  and  so  undoubtedly 
we  did.  Yet  for  my  part  I  had,  among  nineteen- 
twentieths  of  joy,  just  one-twentieth  of  a  lingering 
regret  that  we  had  missed  the  picturesque  fate  that 
awaited  us.  The  reason  was  this  :  it  has  been  through 
life  an  infirmity  of  Mr.  Wilson's  (at  least  in  my 
judgment  an  infirmity)  to  think  too  indulgently  of 
Bonapai'te,  not  merely  in  an  intellectual  point  of  view, 
but  even  with"  reference  to  his  pretensions — hollower, 
one  would  think,  than  the  wind — to  moral  elevation 
and  magnanimity.  Such  a  mistake,  about  a  man  who 
could  never  in  any  one  instance  bring  himself  to 
speak  generously,  or  even  forbearingly  of  an  enemy, 
rouses  my  indignation  as  often  as  I  recur  to  it ;  and 
in  Professor  Wilson,  I  have  long  satisfied  myself  that 
it  takes  its  rise  from  a  more  comprehensive  weakness, 
the  greatest  in  fact  which  besets  his  mind,  viz.  a 
general  tendency  to  bend  to  the  prevailing  opinion 
of  the  world,  and  a  constitutional  predisposition  to 
sympathise  with  power  and  whatsoever  is  triumphant. 
Hence,  I  could  not  but  regret  most  poignantly  the 
capital  opportunity  I  had  forfeited  of  throwing  in  a 
deep  and  stinging  sarcasm  at  his  idol,  just  at  the 
moment  when  we  should  have  been  waiting  to  be 

R   2 


260  DE    QUIXCEY. 

turned  off.  I  know  Professor  Wilson  well :  though 
a  brave  man,  at  twenty-two  he  enjoyed  life  with  a 
rapture  that  few  men  have  ever  known,  and  he  would 
have  clung  to  it  with  awful  tenacity.  Horribly  he 
Avould  have  abominated  the  sight  of  the  rope,  and 
ruefully  he  would  have  sighed  if  I  had  suggested  to 
him  on  the  gallows  any  thoughts  of  that  beautiful 
and  quiet  Elleray  which  he  had  left  behind  in  England. 
Just  at  that  moment  I  acknowledge  that  it  would 
have  been  fiendish,  but  yet  what  a  heaven  of  a  luxury 
it  would  have  been  in  the  way  of  revenge — to  have 
stung  him  with  some  neat  epigram,  that  I  might 
have  composed  in  our  walk  to  the  gallows,  or  while 
the  ropes  were  getting  into  tune,  on  the  generosity 
and  magnanimity  of  Bonaparte  !  Perhaps,  in  a  sober 
estimate,  hanging  might  be  too  heavy  a  price  for  the 
refutation  of  a  single  error ;  yet  still,  at  times,  when 
my  moral  sense  is  roused  and  provoked  by  the 
obstinate  blindness  of  Professor  "Wilson  to  the  mean- 
ness and  parvanimity  *  of  Bonaparte  (a  blindness 
which  in  him,  as  in  all  other  worshippers  of  false 
idols,  is  connected  at  the  moment  with  intense  hati'ed 
for  those  who  refuse  to  partake  in  it),  a  wandering 
regret  comes  over  me  that  we  should  have  missed  so 
fine  an  opportunity  for  gathering  in  our  own  persons 
some  of  those  redundant  bounties  which  the  Corsican's 
'  magnanimity  '  at  that  time  scattered  from  his  cornu- 
copia of  malice  to  the  English  name  upon  all  his 
unfortunate  prisoners  of  that  nation, 

*  I  coin  this  word  2Mrvanimity  as  an  adequate  antithesis  to 
magnanimity ;  for  the  word  pusillanimity  has  received  from 
usage  such  a  confined  determination  to  one  single  idea,  viz.  the 
defect  of  spirit  and  courage,  that  it  is  wholly  unfitted  to  be  the 
antipode  to  the  complex  idea  of  magnanimity. 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR   WILSON.  261 

But  enough  of  this  ;  an  event  soon  occm-red  in  Mr. 
Wilson's  life  which  made  it  a  duty  to  disuiiss  for 
ever  all  travelling  schemes  that  were  connected  with 
so  much  hazard  as  this.  The  fierce  aclia/rnement  of 
Bonaparte  so  pointedly  directed  to  everything  Englisli, 
and  tlie  prostration  of  the  Continent,  which  had 
enabled  him  absolutely  to  seal  every  port  of  Europe 
against  an  Englishman,  who  could  now  no  longer 
venture  to  stray  a  mile  beyond  the  range  of  the  ship's 
guns,  which  had  brought  him  to  the  shore,  without 
the  certainty  of  being  arrested  as  a  spy, — this  unheard- 
of  condition  of  things  had  at  length  compelled  all 
English  gentlemen  to  i-econcile  themselves  for  the 
present  to  the  bounds  of  their  own  island ;  and, 
accordingly,  in  the  spring  of  1809,  we  three  unhanged 
friends  had  entirely  weaned  our  minds  from  the 
travelling  scheme  which  had  so  completely  occupied 
our  thoughts  in  1808,  Mr.  Wilson  in  particular  gave 
himself  up  to  the  pleasures  and  occupations  furnished 
by  the  neighbourhood  of  Windermere,  which  at  that 
time  were  many  and  various ;  living  myself  at  a 
distance  of  nine  miles  from  EUeray,  I  did  not  see 
much  of  him  thi^ough  this  year  1809  ;  in  1810  he 
mai'ried  a  young  English  lady,  greatly  admired  f(>r 
her  beauty  and  the  elegance  of  her  manners,  who  was 
generally  supposed  to  have  brought  him  a  fortune  of 
about  ten  thousand  pounds.  In  saying  that,  I  violate 
no  confidence  at  any  time  reposed  in  me,  for  I  rely 
only  on  the  public  voice — which,  in  this  instance,  I 
have  been  told  by  well-informed  persons,  was  tolerably 
correct.  Be  that  as  it  may,  however,  in  other  respects 
I  have  the  best  reasons  for  belie\ing  that  this  marriage 
connection   has   proved   the   happiest  event  of   Mr. 


62  DE    QUINCEY, 

Wilson's  life ;  and  that  the  delightful  temper  and 
disposition  of  his  wife  have  continued  to  shed  a 
sunshine  of  peace  and  quiet  happiness  over  his 
domestic  establislunent,  which  weie  well  worth  all 
the  fortunes  in  the  world.  This  lady  has  brought 
him  a  family  of  two  sons  and  three  daughters,  all 
interesting  by  their  personal  appearance  and  their 
manners,  and  at  this  time  rapidly  growing  up  into 
young  men  and  women. 

Hex'e  I  should  close  all  farther  notice  of  Mr.  Wilson's 
life,  and  confine  myself,  through  what  remains  of  the 
space  which  I  have  allowed  myself,  to  a  short  critical 
notice  (such  as  it  may  be  proper  for  a  friend  to  write) 
of  his  literary  character  and  merits ;  but  one  single 
event  remains  of  a  magnitude  too  conspicuous  in  any 
man's  life  to  be  dismissed  wholly  without  mention. 
I  should  add,  therefore,  that,  about  eight  or  nine 
years  after  his  marriage  (for  I  forget  the  precise 
year  *),  Mr.  Wilson  offered  himself  a  candidate  for 
the  chair  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  the  University  in 
Edinburgh,  which  had  recently  become  vacant  by  the 
death  of  Dr.  T-homas  Brown,  the  immediate  successor 
of  Mr.  Dugald  Stewart.  The  Scotch,  who  know  just 
as  much  about  what  they  call  '  Moral  f  Philosophy ' 
and    Metaphysics    as    the    English    do,    viz.    exactly 

*  [111  July,  1820.] 

+  Everywhere  in  the  world,  except  in  Scotland,  by  moral 
philosophy  is  meant  the  philosophy  of  the  will,  as  opposed  to 
the  philosophy  of  the  intellect ;  in  Scotland  only  the  word 
moral  is  used,  by  the  strongest  abuse,  as  a  comprehensive 
designation  of  whatsoever  is  not  physical ;  so  that  in  the  cycle 
of  knowledge,  undertaken  by  the  Edinburgh  Professor  of  Moral 
Philosophy,  are  included  logic,  metaphysics,  ethics,  psychology, 
anthropology, — and,  in  one  word,  almost  all  human  knowledge, 
with  tlie  exception  of  physics  and  mathematics. 


SKETCH    OF    PROFESSOR    WILSON.  263 

uothing  at  all,  pride  themselves  prodigiously  upon 
these  two  names  of  Dugald  Stewart  and  Dr.  Brown, 
and  imagine  that  they  filled  the  chair  with  some 
peculiar  brilliance.  Upon  that  subject  a  word  or  two 
farther  on.  Meantime  this  notion  made  the  contest 
peculiarly  painful  and  invidious,  amongst  ungenerous 
enemies,  for  ^ny  untried  man — no  matter  though  his 
real  merits  had  been  a  thousand  times  greater  than 
those  of  his  predecessors.  This  Mr.  Wilson  found ; 
he  had  made  himself  enemies ;  whether  by  any 
unjustifiable  violences,  and  wanton  provocations  on 
his  own  part,  I  have  no  means  of  knowing.  In 
whatever  way  created,  however,  these  enemies  now 
used  the  advantages  of  the  occasion  with  rancorous 
malignity,  and  persecuted  him  at  every  step  with 
unrelenting  fury.  Very  different  was  the  treatment 
he  met  with  from  his  competitor  in  the  contest ;  in 
that  one  circumstance  of  the  case,  the  person  of  his 
competitor,  he  had  reason  to  think  himself  equally 
fortunate  and  unfortunate  ;  foi-tvinate,  that  he  should 
be  met  by  the  opposition  of  a  man  whose  opposition 
was  honour — a  man  of  birth,  talents,  and  high 
breeding,  a  good  scholar,  anJ  for  extensive  reading 
and  universal  knowledge  of  books  (and  especially  of 
philosophic  literature)  the  Magliabecchi  of  Scotland; 
unfortunate  on  the  other  hand  that  this  accomplished 
opponent,  adorned  by  so  many  brilliant  gifts  that 
recommended  him  to  the  contested  office,  should 
happen  to  be  his  early  and  highly  valued  friend. 
The  particular  progx-ess  of  the  contest,  and  its  circum- 
stances, I  am  not  able  to  state ;  in  general  I  have 
heard  in  Edinburgh  that,  from  political  influences 
which  chiefly  governed  the  course  of  the  election,  the 


264  DE    QUINCEY. 

conduct  of  the  partisans  (perhaps  on  both  sides)  was 
iutemperate,  personal,  and  unjust;  whilst  that  of  the 
principals  and  their  immediate  friends  was  full  of 
forbearance  and  generosity.  The  issue  was,  that  Mr. 
Wilson  carried  the  Professorship, — by  what  majority 
of  votes,  I  am  unable  to  say ;  and  you  will  be  pleased 
to  hear  that  any  little  coolness,  which  must  naturally 
have  succeeded  to  so  warm  a  contest,  has  long  since 
passed  away  ;  and  the  two  rival  candidates  have  been 
for  many  years  restored  to  their  early  feelings  of 
mutual  esteem  and  regard. 

Here  I  pause  for  everything  that  concerns  in  the 
remotest  way  the  incidents  of  Professor  Wilson's  life  ; 
one  letter  I  mean  to  add,  as  I  have  already  promised, 
on  the  particular  position  which  he  occupies  in  re- 
lation to  modern  literature ;  and  then  I  have  done. 
Meantime,  let  me  hope  that  you  have  not  so  far 
miscalculated  my  purpose  as  to  have  been  looking 
out  for  anecdotes  (^.  e.  scandal)  about  Professor 
Wilson  throughout  the  course  of  this  letter ;  since, 
if  in  any  case  I  could  descend  to  cater  for  tastes  of 
that  description  (which  I  am  persuaded, are  naturally 
no  tastes  of  your  family), — you  must  feel,  on  reflec- 
tion, how  peculiarly  impossible  it  is  to  take  that 
course  in  sketching  the  character  of  a  friend,  because 
the  vei-y  means,  by  which  in  almost  every  case  one 
becomes  possessed  of  such  private  anecdotes,  are  the 
opportunities  thrown  in  one's  way  by  the  confiding 
negligence  of  affectionate  friendship ;  opportunities 
therefore  which  must  be  for  ever  sacred  to  evei-y  man 
of  honour. 

Yours  most  faithfully, 

Parmexides. 


THE    LAKE    DIALECT. 

To  the  Editor  of  ^  Titan.' 

My  Dear  Sir, — I  send  you  a  few  hasty  notes  upon 
Mr.  Eobert  Ferguson's  little  work  (relating  to  the 
dialect  current  at  the  English  Lakes).*  Mr.  Ferguson's 
book  is  learned  and  seasonable,  adapted  to  the  stage 
at  which  such  studies  have  now  arrived  among  us, 
and  adapted  also  to  a  popular  use.  I  am  sure  that 
Mr.  Ferguson  knows  a  great  deal  more  about  his  very 
interesting  theme  than  /  do.  Nevertheless,  I  presume 
to  sit  in  judgment  ujjon  him ;  or  so  it  will  be  inferred 
from  my  assuming  the  office  of  his  reviewer.  But  in 
reality  I  pretend  to  no  snch  ambitious  and  invidious 
functions.  What  I  propose  to  do,  in  this  hasty  and 
extemjiore  fashion,  is — simply  to  take  a  seat  in  Mr. 
Ferguson's  court  as  an  amicus  curice,  and  occasionally 
to  suggest  a  doiibt,  by  possibility  an  amendment ;  but 
more  often  to  lead  astray  judge,  jury,  and  docile 
audience  into  matter  growing  out  of  the  subject,  but 
very  seldom  leading  back  into  it,  too  often,  perhaps, 
having  little  to  do  with  it ;  pleasant  by  possibility, 
according  to  Foote's  judgment  in  a  parallel  case, 
'pleasant,  but  wrong.'     No  great  matter  if  it  should 

*  The  Northmen  in  Cumherlnnd  and  Wedmoreland.  By 
Robert  Ferguson.  Carlisle  :  Steel  &  Brother.  London : 
Longmans  &  Co. 


266  DE    QUINCEY. 

be  so.  It  will  be  read  within  the  privileged  term  of 
Chi-istmas ;  *  during  which  licensed  saturnalia  it  can 
be  no  blame  to  any  paper,  that  it  is  '  pleasant,  but 
wrong. ' 

I  begin  with  lodging  a  complaint  against  Mr, 
Ferguson,  namely,  that  he  has  ignored  me — me,  that 
in  some  measure  may  be  described  as  having  broken 
gx'ound  originally  in  this  interesting  field  of  research. 
Me,  the  undoubted  parent  of  such  studies — i.  e.  the 
person  who  first  solemnly  proclaimed  the  Danish 
language  to  be  the  master-key  for  unlocking  the 
peculiarities  of  the  Lake  dialect — me,  has  this  unduti- 
ful  son  never  noticed,  except  incidentally,  and  then 
only  with  some  reserve,  or  even  with  a  distinct  scruple, 
as  regards  the  particular  point  of  information  for 
which  I  am  cited.  Sei'iously,  however,  this  very 
passage,  which  olfers  me  the  aifront  of  utter  exclusion 
from  what  I  had  regarded  as  my  own  peculiar  terri- 
tory, my  own  Danish  ring-fence,  shows  clearly  that 
no  affront  had  been  designed.  Mr.  Ferguson  had 
found  occasion,  at  p.  80,  to  mention  that  Fairfield, 
the  most  distinguished  t  of  the  Grasmere  boundaries, 
and    '  next    neighbour    to    Helvellyn '    (next   also    in 

*  Writing  at  the  moment  in  Scotland,  where  Christmas  is 
as  little  heard  of,  or  popularly  understood  or  regarded,  as  the 
Mahometan  festival  of  Buyram  or  the  fast  of  Ramadan,  I  ought 
to  exjjlain  that,  as  Christmas  Day,  by  adjournment  from  Lady 
Day — namely,  March  25 — falls  uniformly  on  December  25,  it 
happens  necessarily  that  Tivelfth  Day  (the  adoration  of  the  Magi 
at  Bethlehem),  which  is  the  ceremonial  close  of  Christmas,  falls 
upon  the  5tli  day  of  January  ;  seven  days  in  the  old,  five  in  the 
new,  year. 

t  '  And  mighty  Fairfield,  with  its  chime 
Of  echoes,  still  was  keeping  time. ' 

WuKDs vvoiii'H —  TIt,e  IVaggoner. 


THE    LAKE    DIALECT.  267 

magnitude,  being  above  three  thousand  feet  high), 
had,  as  regarded  its  name,  '  been  derived  from  the 
Scandinavian  faar,  sheep,  in  allusion  to  the  peculiar 
fertility  of  its  pastures.'  He  goes  on  thus — 'This 
mountain '  (says  De  Quincey)  *  has  large,  smooth 
pastoral  savannahs,  to  which  the  sheep  resort  when 
all  its  rocky  or  barren  neighbours  are  left  desolate.' 
In  thus  referring  to  myself  for  the  character  of  the 
mountain,  he  does  not  at  all  suppose  that  he  is 
referring  to  the  author  of  the  etymology.  On  the 
contraiy,  the  very  next  sentence  says — -'I  do  not 
know  who  is  the  author  of  this  etymology,  which  has 
been  quoted  by  several  writers ;  but  it  appears  to  me 
to  be  open  to  considerable  doubt ' ;  and  this  for  two 
separate  reasons,  wliich  he  assigns,  and  which  I  will 
notice  a  little  further  on. 

Meantime  I  pau.se,  for  the  sake  of  saying  that  the 
derivation  is  mine.  Thirty-seven,  or  it  may  be  thirty- 
eight,  years  ago,  I  first  brought  forward  my  Danish 
views  in  a  local  newspaper  —namely,  The  Kendal 
Gazette,  published  every  Saturday.  The  rival  (I  may 
truly  say — the  hostile)  newspaper,  published  also  on 
Saturday,  was  called  The  Westmoreland  Chronicle. 
The  exact  date  of  my  own  communication  upon  the 
dialect  of  the  Lake  district  I  cannot  at  this  moment 
assign.  Earlier  than  1818  it  could  not  have  been, 
nor  later  than  1820.  What  first  threw  me  upon  this 
vein  of  exploring  industry  was,  the  accidental  stum- 
bling suddenly  upon  an  interesting  little  incident  of 
Westmoreland  rustic  life.  From  a  roadside  cottage, 
just  as  I  came  nearly  abreast  of  its  door,  issued  a 
little  child ;  not  old  enough  to  walk  with  particular 
firmness,  but  old  enough   for   mischief;    a   laughing 


268  DE    QUINCEY, 

expression  of  which  it  bore  upon  its  featv;res.  It  was 
clearly  in  the  act  of  absconding  from  home,  and  was 
hurrying  earnestly  to  a  turn  of  the  road  which  it 
counted  upon  making  available  for  concealment.  But, 
before  it  could  reach  this  point,  a  young  woman,  of 
remarkable  beauty,  perhaps  twenty  years  old,  ran  out 
in  some  alarm,  which  was  not  diminished  by  hearing 
the  sound  of  carriage-wheels  rapidly  coming  up  from 
a  distance  of  probably  two  furlongs.  The  little  rosy 
thing  stopped  and  turned  on  hearing  its  mother's 
voice,  but  hesitated  a  little,  until  she  made  a  gestui'e 
of  withdrawing  her  handkerchief  from  her  bosom,  and 
said,  coaxingly,  '  Come  its  ways,  then,  and  get  its 
■patten.''  Until  that  reconciling  word  was  uttered, 
there  had  been  a  shadow  of  distrust  on  the  baby's 
face,  as  if  treachery  might  be  in  the  wind.  But  the 
magic  of  that  one  word  patten  wrought  an  instant 
revolution.  Back  the  little  truant  ran,  and  the  young 
mother's  manner  made  it  evident  that  she  would  not 
on  her  part  forget  what  had  passed  between  the  high 
contracting  parties.*     What,  then,  could  be  the  mean- 

*  It  might  seem  odd  to  many  people  that  a  cliihl  able  to  nm 
alone  should  not  have  been  already  weaned,  a  process  of  early 
misery  that,  in  modern  improved  practice,  takes  place  amongst 
opulent  families  at  the  age  of  six  months  ;  and,  secondly,  it 
might  seem  equally  odd  that,  until  weaned,  any  infant  could  be 
truly  described  as  'rosy.'  I  wish,  however,  always  to  be  puncti- 
liously accurate  ;  and  I  can  assure  my  readers  that,  generally 
speaking,  the  wives  of  labouring  men  (for  more  reasons  than 
one)  suckle  their  infants  for  three  years,  to  the  great  indignation 
of  medical  practitioners,  who  denounce  the  practice  as  six  times 
too  long.  Secondly,  although  unweanel  infants  are  ordinarily 
pale,  yet,  amongst  those  approaching  their  eighteenth  or  twen- 
tieth month,  there  are  often  found  children  as  rosy  as  any  one 
can  meet  with. 


THE    LAKE    DIALECT.  269 

ing  of  this  talismanic  word  pa^^eu  ?  Accidentally, 
having  had  a  naval  brother  confined  amongst  the 
Danes,  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  for  eighteen  months,  I 
knew  that  it  meant  the  female  bosom.  Soon  after  I 
stiimbled  upon  the  meaning  of  the  Danish  word 
Skuandren — namely,  what  in  street  phrase  amongst 
ourselves  is  called  giving  to  any  person  a  blowing-up- 
This  was  too  remarkable  a  word,  too  bristling  with 
harsh  blustering  consonants,  to  baffle  the  detecting 
ear,  as  it  might  have  done  under  any  masquerading 
aura-textilis,  or  woven  air  of  vowels  and  diphthongs. 

Many  scores  of  times  I  had  heard  men  threatening 
to  skiander  this  person  or  that  when  next  they  should 
meet.  ISTot  by  possibility  could  it  indicate  any  mode 
of  personal  violence ;  for  no  race  of  men  could  be 
more  mild  and  honoui-ably  forbearing  in  tlieir  inter- 
course with  each  other  than  the  manly  dalesmen  of 
the  Lakes.  From  the  context,  it  had  long  been 
evident  that  it  implied  expostulation  and  verbal 
repi'oach.  And  now  at  length  I  learned  that  this  was 
its  Danish  import.  The  veiy  mountain  at  the  foot  of 
which  my  Grasmere  cottage  stood,  and  the  little 
oi'chard  attached  to  Avhich  formed  '  the  lowest  step  in 
that  magnificent  staircase '  (such  was  "Wordsworth's 
description  of  it),  leading  upwards  to  the  summits  of 
Helvellyn,  reminded  me  daily  of  that  Danish  language 
which  all  around  me  suggested  as  being  the  secret 
writing — the  seal^ — the  lock  that  imprisoned  ancient 
records  as  to  thing  or  person,  and  yet  again  as  being 
the  key  that  should  open  this  lock ;  as  that  which 
had  hidden  through  many  centuries,  and  yet  also  as 
that  which  should  finally  reveal. 

I  have  thus  come  round  to  the  name  of  Fairfield, 


270  DE    QUINCEY. 

which  seemed  to  me  some  lorty  years  ago  as  bej'ond 
all  reasonable  doubt  the  Danish  mask  for  Sheep-fell. 
But,  in  using  the  phrase  '  reasonable  doubt,'  1  am  far 
from  insinuating  that  Mr.  Ferguson's  deliberate  doubt 
is  not  reasonable.  I  will  state  both  sides  of  the 
question,  for  neither  is  without  some  show  of  argu- 
ment. To  me  it  seemed  next  to  impossible  that  the 
early  Danish  settlers  could,  under  the  natural  pressuie 
of  prominent  differences  among  that  cii'cuit  of  hills 
which  formed  the  barriers  of  Grasmere,  have  failed  to 
distinguish  as  the  sheep  mountain  that  sole  eminence 
which  offered  a  pasture  ground  to  their  sheep  all  the 
year  round.  In  summer  and  autumn  all  the  neigh- 
bouring fells,  that  were  not  mere  rocks,  yielded  pasture 
moi-e  or  less  scanty.  But  Fairfield  showed  herself  the 
alma  mater  of  their  flocks  even  in  winter  and  early 
spring.  So,  at  least,  my  local  informants  asserted. 
Mr.  Ferguson,  however,  objects,  as  an  unaccountable 
singularity,  that  on  this  hypothesis  we  shall  have  one 
mountain,  and  one  only,  classed  under  the  modern 
Scandinavian  term  of  field ;  all  others  being  known 
by  the  elder  name  of  fell.  I  acknowledge  that  this 
anomaly  is  perplexing.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  what 
Mr.  Ferguson  suggests  is  still  more  perplexing.  He 
supposes  that,  '  because  the  summit  of  this  mountain 
is  such  a  peculiarly  green  and  level  plain,  it  might 
not  inappi-opriately  be  called  a  fair  field.'  Certainly 
it  might ;  but  by  Englishmen  of  recent  generations, 
and  not  by  Danish  immigrants  of  the  ninth  centui^y. 
To  balance  the  anomaly  of  what  certainly  wears  a 
faint  soiqygon  of  anachronism — namely,  the  ap]yare/it 
anticipation  of  the  modern  Norse  word  field,  Mr. 
Ferguson's  conjecture  would  take  a  headlong  plunge 


THE    LAKE    DIALECT.  271 

into  good  classical  English.  Now  of  this  there  is  no 
other  instance.  Even  the  little  swells  of  ground,  tliat 
hardly  rise  to  the  dignity  of  hills,  which  might  be 
expected  to  submit  readily  to  changing  appellations, 
under  the  changing  accidents  of  ownership,  yet  still 
retain  their  primitive  Scandinavian  names — as  Butter- 
lip  Howe,  for  example.  Nor  do  I  recollect  any  excep- 
tions to  this  tendency,  lanless  in  the  case  of  jocose 
names,  such  as  Skiddmo's  Cub,  for  Lattrig  ;  and  into 
this  class,  perhaps,  falls  even  the  dignified  mountain 
of  The  Old  Man,  at  the  head  of  Coniston.  Mr. 
Ferguson  will  allow  that  it  woukl  be  as  startling  to 
the  dense  old  Danes  of  King  Alfred's  time,  if  they 
had  found  a  mountain  of  extra  pretensions  wearing  a 
modern  English  name,  as  it  would  to  the  Macedonian 
argyraspides,  if  suspecting  that,  in  some  coming  cen- 
tury, their  mighty  leader,  '  the  great  Emathian  con- 
queror,' could  by  any  possible  Dean  of  St.  Patrick, 
and  by  any  conceivable  audacity  of  legerdemain,  be 
traced  back  to  All-eygs  under-the-grate.  If  the  name 
really  is  good  English,  in  that  case  a  separate  and 
extra  labour  arises  for  us  all ;  thei-e  must  have  been 
some  old  Danish  name  for  this  most  serviceable  of 
fells ;  and  then  we  have  not  mei-ely  to  explain  the 
present  English  name,  but  also  to  account  for  the 
disappearance  of  this  archceological  Danish  name. 
What  I  would  throw  out  conjecturally  as  a  bare 
possibility  is  this: — When  an  ancient  dialect  (A)  is 
gradually  superseded  by  a  more  modern  one  (E),  the 
flood  of  innovation  which  steals  over  the  old  reign,  and 
gradiially  dispossesses  it,  does  not  rush  in  simultane- 
ously as  a  torrent,  but  supervenes  stealthily  and 
unequally,  according  to  the  humouiing  or  thwarting 


97-7 


DE    QUINCEY. 


of  local  circumstances.  Nobody,  I  am  sure,  is  better 
aware  of  this  accident,  as  besetting  the  transit  of 
dialects,  than  Mr.  Ferguson,  For  instance,  many  of 
those  words  which  are  imported  to  us  from  the 
American  United  Stat-^s,  and  often  amuse  us  by  their 
picturesquenesp,  have  originally  been  carried  to 
America  by  our  own  people ;  in  England  they  lurked 
for  ages  as  provincialisms,  localised  within  some 
narrow  circuit,  and  to  which  some  trifling  barrier  (as 
a  river — rivulet — or  even  a  brook)  offered  a  retarding 
force.  In  snpercivilised  England,  a  river,  it  may  be 
thought,  cannot  offer  much  obstruction  to  the  free 
current  of  words  ;  ages  ago  it  must  have  been  bridged 
over.  Sometimes,  however,  a  bridge  is  impossible 
under  the  transcendent  importance  of  a  free  navi- 
gation. For  instance,  at  the  Bristol  Hotwells,  the 
ready  and  fluent  intercourse  with  Long  Ashton,  and 
a  long  line  of  adjacencies,  is  effectually  obstructed  by 
the  necessity  of  an  open  water  communication  with 
the  Bristol  Clumnel.  At  one  period  ({.  e.  when  as  yet 
Liverpool  and  Glasgow  were  fifth-rate  ports),  all  the 
wealth  of  the  West  Indies  flowed  into  England 
through  this  little  muddy  ditch  of  the  Bristol  Avon, 
and  Bownham  Ferry  became  the  exponent  and 
measure  of  English  intercourse  with  the  northern 
nook  of  Somersetshire.  A  river  is  bad ;  but  when 
a  mountain  of  very  toilsome  ascent  happens  to  be 
interposed,  the  inten-uption  offered  to  the  popular 
intercourse,  and  the  results  of  this  interruption, 
become  much  more  memorable.  An  illustration  which 
I  can  offer  on  this  point,  and  which,  in  fact,  I  did 
offer  (as,  upon  inquiry,  Mr.  Ferguson  will  find),  thirty- 
eight  years  ago,  happens  to  bear  with  peculiar  force 


THE    LAKE    DIALECT.  273 

upon  our  immediate  difficulty  of  Fairfield.  The  valleys 
on  the  northern  side  of  Kirkstone — namely,  in  par- 
ticular, the  three  valleys  of  Patterdale,  Matterdale, 
and  Martindale — are  as  effectually  cut  off  from 
intercourse  with  the  valleys  on  the  southern  side — 
namely,  the  Windermere  valley,  Ryedale,  and  Gras- 
mere,  with  all  their  tributai-y  nooks  and  attachments — 
as  though  an  arm  of  the  sea  had  rolled  between  them. 
It  costs  a  foot  trnveller  half  of  a  summer's  day  to 
effect  the  passage  to  and  fro  over  Kirkstone  (what 
the  Greeks  so  tersely  expressed  in  the  case  of  a  race- 
course *  by  the  one  word  diaulos).  And  in  my  time 
no  innkeeper  from  the  Windermere  side  of  Kirkstone 
would  carry  even  a  solitary  individual  across  with 
fewer  than  four  horses.  What  has  been  the  result  ] 
"Why,  that  the  dialect  on  the  northern  side  of  Kirk- 
stone bears  the  impress  of  a  more  ultra-Danish 
influence  than  that  upon  the  "Windermere  side;     In 

*  I  mean  that  they  included  the  progressive  or  outward-bound 
course,  and  equally  the  regressive  or  homeward-bound  course, 
withiu  the  compass  of  this  one  word  SiavXoQ.  "We  in  England 
have  a  phrase  which  conventionally  has  been  made  to  supply 
the  want  of  such  an  idea,  but  unfortunately  with  a  limitation  to 
tJie  service  of  the  Post-office.  It  is  the  phrase  coivrsc  of  post. 
When  a  Newcastle  man  is  asked,  '  What  is  the  course  of  post 
between  you  and  Liverpool  ? '  he  understands,  and  by  a  legal 
decision  it  has  been  settled  that  he  is  under  an  obligation  to 
understand — What  is  the  diaulos,  what  is  the  flux  and  reflux — 
the  to  and  the  fro — the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  respiration — 
between  you  and  Liverpool.  AVhat  is  the  number  of  hours  and 
minutes  required  for  the  transit  of  a  letter  from  Newcastle  to 
Liverpool,  but  coupled  with  the  return  transit  of  the  answer  ? 
This  forward  and  backward  movement  constitutes  the  rfi'rtH7oi- ; 
less  than  this  will  not  satisfy  the  law  as  the  complex  process 
understood  by  the  course  of  post.  Less  than  this  is  only  the  half 
section  of  a  diaulos. 

VOL.   I.  S 


274  DE    QUINCEY. 

particular  this  remarkable  difference  occurs  :  not  the 
nouns  and  verbs  merely  are  Danish  amongst  the 
trans-Kirkstonians  (I  speak  as  a  Grasmerian),  but 
even  the  particles — the  very  joints  and  articulations 
of  language.  The  Danish  at,  for  instance,  is  used  for 
to  ;  I  do  not  mean  for  to  the  preposition :  they  do  not 
say,  '  Carry  this  letter  at  Mr.  W.' ;  but  as  the  sign 
of  the  infinitive  mood.  *  Tell  him  at  put  his  spurs  on, 
and  at  ride  off  for  a  surgeon  ] '  Now  this  illustration 
carries  along  with  it  a  proof  that  a  stronger  and  a 
weaker  infusion  of  the  Danish  element,  possibly  an 
older  and  a  younger  infusion,  may  prevail  even 
in  close  adjacencies,  provided  they  are  powerfully 
divided  by  walls  of  rock  that  happen  to  be  eight  miles 
thick. 

But  the  inexorable  Press,  that  waits  for  few  men 
under  the  rank  of  a  king,  and  not  always  for  him  {as 
I  happen  to  know,  by  having  once  seen  a  proof-sheet 
corrected  by  the  royal  hand  of  George  IV.,  which 
proof  exhibited  some  disloyal  signs  of  impatience), 
forces  me  to  adjourn  all  the  rest  to  next  month. — 
Yours  ever, 

Thomas  De  Quincey. 


STORMS   IN   ENGLISH   HISTORY: 

A   GLANCE  AT   THE   REIGX    OF   HENRY   YIIL* 

What  two  works  are  those  for  which  at  this  moment 
our  national  intellect  (or,  more  rigorously  speaking, 
on  •  2)opidar  intellect)  is  beginning  clamorously  to  call  1 
They  are  these  :  first,  a  Conversations-Lexicon,  obeying 
(as  regards  plan  and  purpose)  the  general  outline  of 
the  German  work  bearing  that  title ;  ministering  to 
the  same  elementary  necessities  ;  implying,  therefore, 
a  somewhat  corresponding  stage  of  progress  in  our 
own  populace  and  that  of  Germany ;  but  otherwise 
(as  regards  the  executive  details  in  adapting  such  a 
work  to  the  special  service  of  an  English  public) 
moving  under  moral  restraints  sterner  by  much,  and 
more  faithfully  upheld,  than  could  rationally  be  looked 
for  in  any  great  literary  enterprise  resigned  to  purely 
German  impulses.  For  over  the  atmosphere  of 
thought  and  feeling  in  Germany  there  broods  no 
public  conscience.  Such  a  Conversations-Lexicon  is 
one  of  the  two  great  works  for  which  the  popular 
mind  of  England  is  waiting  and  watching  in  silence. 

*  History  of  England  from  the  Fall  of  IVolscy  to  the  Death 
of  Elizabeth.  By  James  Anthony  Froude,  M.A.,  late  Fellow 
of  Exeter  College,  Oxford.  Vols.  I.  and  II.  London:  Parker  & 
Son,  West  Strand.  1856. 

S   2 


276  DE   QUINCEY. 

The  other  (and  not  less  important)  work  is— a  faithful 
History  of  England.  We  will  offer,  at  some  futiu-e 
time,  a  few  words  upon  the  fii-st ;  but  upon  the 
second — here  brought  before  us  so  advantageously 
in  the  earnest,  thoughtful,  and  oftentimes  eloquent 
volumes  of  Mr.  Froude — we  will  venture  to  offer 
three  or  four  pages  of  critical  comment. 

Could  the  England  of  the  sixteenth  century  have 
escaped  that  great  convulsion  which  accompanied  the 
dissolution  of  the  monasteries'?  It  is  barely  possible 
that  a  gentle  system  of  periodic  decimations,  dis- 
tributing this  inevitable  ruin  over  an  entire  century, 
might  have  blunted  the  edge  of  the  fierce  plough- 
share :  but  there  were  difiiculties  in  the  way  of  such 
arrangements,  that  would  too  probably  have  thwarted 
the  benign  purpose. 

Meantime,  what  was  it  that  hnd  stolen  like  a 
canker-worm  into  the  machinery  of  these  monastic 
bodies,  and  insensibly  had  corroded  a  principle  origin- 
ally of  admitted  purity  ?  The  malice  of  Protestantism 
has  too  readily  assumed  that  Popery  was  answerable 
for  this  corrosion.  But  it  would  be  hard  to  show 
that  Popery  in  any  one  of  its  features,  good  or  bad, 
manifested  itself  conspicuously  and  operatively  :  nay, 
to  say  the  simple  truth,  it  was  thi'ough  the  very 
opposite  agency  that  the  monastic  institutions  came 
to  ruin  :  it  was  because  Popery,  that  supi-eme  control 
to  which  these  monasteries  had  been  confided,  shrank 
from  its  lesponsibilities — weakly,  lazily,  or  even  per- 
fidiously, abandoned  that  supervisorship  in  default  of 
Avhich  neither  right  of  inspection,  nor  duty  of  inspec- 
tion, nor  power  of  inspection,  was  found  to  be  lodged 
in    any    quarter — there    it    was,    precisely    in    that 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  277 

dereliction  of  censoi'ial  autliority,  that  all  went  to 
ruin.  All  corporations  grow  corrupt,  unless  habitu- 
ally kept  under  the  eye  of  public  inspection,  or  else 
officially  liable  to  searching  visitations.  Now,  who 
were  the  regular  and  official  visitors  of  the  English 
monasteries]  Not  the  local  bishops  ;  for  in  that  case 
the  public  clamour,  the  very  notoriety  of  the  scandals 
(as  we  see  them  reported  by  Wicliffe  and  Chaucer), 
would  have  "uided  the  general  wrath  to  some  effectual 
surgery  for  the  wounds  and  vilcers  of  the  institutions. 
Unhappily  the  official  visitors  were  the  heads  of  the 
monastic  orders  ;  these,  and  these  only.  A  Franciscan 
body,  for  example,  owed  no  obedience  except  to  the 
representative  of  St.  Francis  ;  and  this  representative 
too  uniformly  resided  somewhere  on  the  Continent. 
And  thus  it  was  that  effectually  and  virtually  English 
monasteries  were  subject  to  no  control.  Nay,  the 
very  corrections  of  old  abuses  by  English  parlia- 
mentary statutes  had  greatly  strengthened  the  evil. 
Formerly,  the  monastic  funds  were  drawn  upon  to 
excess  in  defraying  the  costs  of  a  transmarine  visita- 
tion. But  that  evil,  lising  into  enormous  proportions, 
was  at  length  radically  extirpated  by  parliamentary 
statutes  that  cut  down  the  costs ;  so  that  continental 
devotees,  finding  their  visitations  no  longer  profitable 
in  a  pecuniary  sense,  sometimes  even  costly  to  them- 
selves, and  costly  upon  a  scale  but  dimly  intelligible 
to  any  continental  experience,  rapidly  cooled  down  in 
their  pio'is  enthusiasm  against  monastic  delinquencies. 
Hatred,  at  any  i-ate,  and  malignant  anger  the  visitor 
had  to  face,  not  impossibly  some  risk  of  assassination, 
in  prosecuting  his  inquiries  into  the  secret  crimes  of 
monks   that   were  often  confederated   in  a   common 


278  DE    QUINCEY. 

interest  of  resistance  to  all  honest  or  searching  in- 
quiry. But,  if  to  these  evils  were  superadded  others 
of  a  pecuniary  class,  it  was  easy  to  anticipate,  under 
this  failure  of  all  regular  inspectorship,  a  period  of 
plenai-y  indulgence  to  the  excesses  of  these  potent 
corporations.  Such  a  period  came :  no  man  being 
chai'ged  with  the  duty  of  inspection,  no  man  inspected ; 
but  never  was  the  danger  more  surely  at  hand,  than 
when  it  seemed  by  all  ordinary  signs  to  have  abso- 
lutely died  out.  Already,  in  the  days  of  Richard  II., 
the  doom  of  the  monasteries  might  be  heard  muttering 
in  the  chambers  of  the  upper  air.  In  the  angry 
denunciations  of  Wicliffe,  in  the  popular  merriment 
of  Chaucer,  might  be  read  the  same  sentence  of  con- 
demnation awarded  against  them.  Fierce  warnings 
were  given  to  them  at  intervals.  A  petition  against 
them  was  addressed  by  the  House  of  Commons  to 
Henry  IV.  The  son  of  this  prince,  the  man  of 
Agincourt,  though  superstitious  enough,  if  super- 
stition coiild  have  availed  them,  had  in  his  short  reign 
(so  occupied,  one  might  have  thought,  with  war  and 
foreign  affairs)  found  time  to  read  them  a  dreadful 
warning :  more  than  five  scores  of  these  offending 
bodies  (Priories  Alien)  were  suppressed  by  that  single 
monarch,  the  laughing  Hal  of  Jack  Falstaff.  One 
whole  century  slij^ped  away  between  this  penal  sup- 
pression and  the  ministry  of  Wolsey.  What  effect 
can  we  ascribe  to  this  admonitory  chastisement  upon 
the  general  temper  and  conduct  of  the  monastic 
interest?  It  would  be  difficult  beyond  measure  at 
this  day  to  draw  up  any  a  Ipquate  report  of  the  foul 
abuses  prevailing  in  the  majority  of  religious  houses, 
for  the  three  following  reasons  : — -First,  because  the 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  279 

main  record  of  such  abuses,  after  it  had  been  elabor- 
ately compiled  under  the  commission  of  Henry  YIII., 
was  (at  the  instigation  of  his  eldest  daughter  Mary) 
most  industriously  destroyed  by  Bishop  Bonner ; 
secondly,  because  too  generally  the  original  oath  of 
religious  fidelity  and  secrecy,  in  matters  interesting 
to  the  founder  and  the  foundation,  was  held  to  inter- 
fere with  frank  disclosures ;  thirdly,  because,  as  to 
much  of  the  most  crying  licentiousness,  its  full  and 
satisfactory  detection  too  often  depended  upon  a 
surprise.  Steal  upon  the  delinquents  suddenly,  and 
ten  to  one  they  were  caught  flagrante  delicto :  but 
upon  any  notice  transpiring  of  the  hostile  approach, 
all  was  arranged  so  as  to  ev^ade  for  the  moment — or 
in  the  end  to  baffle  finally — search  alike  and  suspicion. 
The  following  report,  which  Mr,  Froude  views  as 
the  liveliest  of  all  that  Bishop  Bonner's  zeal  has 
spared,  offers  a  picturesque  sketch  of  such  cases, 
according  to  the  shape  which  they  often  assumed.  In 
Chaucer's  tale,  told  with  such  unrivalled  vis  coniica, 
of  the  Trompiiir/ton  Miller  and  the  Two  Camh'idge 
Scholars,  we  have  a  most  life-like  picture  of  the  miller 
with  his  '  big  bones,'  as  a  '  dangerous '  man  for  the 
nonce.  Just  such  a  man,  just  as  dangerous,  and  just 
as  big-boned,  we  find  in  the  person  of  an  abbot — 
defending  liis  abbey,  not  by  any  reputation  for  sanctity 
or  learning,  but  solely  by  his  dangerousness  as  the 
wielder  of  quarter-staff  and  cudgel.  With  no  bull- 
dog or  mastiff,  and  taken  by  surprise,  such  an  abbot 
naturally  lost  the  stakes  for  which  he  played.  The 
letter  is  addressed  to  the  Secretary  of  State  : — '  Please 
it  your  goodness  to  understand,  that  on  Friday  the 
22nd  of  October  (1535),  I  rode  back  with  speed  to  take 


280  DE    QUINCEY. 

au  inventory  of  Folkstone ;  and  thence  I  went  to 
Langden.  Whereat  immediately  descending  from 
my  horse,  I  sent  Bartlett,  your  servant,  with  all  viy 
servants,  to  circumsept  the  abbey  \i.  e.  to  form  a 
hedge  round  about],  and  surely  to  keep  [guard]  all 
back-doors  and  starting  holes.  I  myself  went  alone 
to  the  abbot's  lodging — joining  upon  the  fields  and 
wood.'  [This  position,  the  reporter  goes  on  to  in- 
sinuate, was  no  matter  of  chance  :  but,  like  a  i-abbit- 
warren,  had  been  so  placed  with  a  view  to  the 
advantages  for  retreat  and  for  cover  in  the  adjacent 
woodlands.]  '  I  was  a  good  space  knocking  at  the 
abbot's  door ;  neither  did  any  sound  or  sensible 
manifestation  of  life  betray  itself,  saving  the  abbot's 
little  dog,  that  within  his  door,  fast  locked,  bayed  and 
barked.  I  found  a  short  pole-axe  standing  behind 
the  door ;  and  with  it  I  dashed  the  abbot's  door  in 
pieces  ictu  oculi  [in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye]  ;  and  set 
one  of  my  men  to  keep  that  door ;  and  about  the 
house  I  go  with  that  pole-axe  in  my  hand — ne  forte 
["  lest  hy  any  chance  "  * — holding  in  suspense  such 
words  as  ^^  some  violence  sltould  he  qff'ered"'\ — for  the 
abbot  is  a  dangerous,  desperate  knave,  and  a  hardy. 
But,  for  a  conplusion,  his  gentlewoman  bestirred  her 
stumps  towards  her  starting  holes  ;  and  then  Bartlett, 
watching  the  pursuit,  took  the  tender  demoisel ;  and, 
aftej  I  had  examined  her,  to  Dover — to  the  mayor, 
to  set  her  in  some  cage  or  prison  for  eight  days. 
And    I    brought  holy   father  abbot   to   Canterbury  ; 

*   '  Nc  forte '  is  a  case  of  what  is  learnedly  called  aposiopcsis  or 
reticcntia  ;  that  is,  where  (for  the  sake  of  effect)  some  emphatic 

words  are  left  to  be  guessed  at :  as  Virgil's  Qiws  ego (Whom 

if  I  catch,  I'll ) 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  281 

and  here,  in  Ciirist  Church,  I  will  leave  hiin  in 
piisou.' 

This  little  interlude,  offering  its  several  figures  in 
such  life-like  attitudes — its  big-boned  abbot  prowling 
up  and  down  the  precincts  of  the  abl)ey  for  the  chance 
of  a  '  shy '  at  the  intruding  commissioner — the  little 
faithful  bow-wow  doing  its  petit  possible  to  warn  big- 
bones  of  his  danger,  thus  ending  his  faithful  services 
by  an  act  of  farewell  loyalty — and  the  unlucky 
demoisel  scuttling  away  to  her  rabbit-warren,  only  to 
find  all  the  spiracles  and  peeping-holes  preoccupied  or 
stopped,  and  her  own  '  apparel '  unhappily  locked  up 
'  in  the  abbot  his  coffer,'  so  as  to  render  hopeless  all 
evasion  or  subsequent  denial  of  the  fact,  that  tea 
big-boned  '  indusia '  (or  shirts)  lay  interleaved  in  one 
and  the  same  '  coffer,'  inter  totidem  niveas  camisas  *  (or 
chemises) — all  this  framed  itself  as  a  little  amusing 
parenthesis,  a  sort  of  family  picture  amongst  the 
dreadful  reports  of  ecclesiastical  commissioners. 

No  suppression  of  the  religious  houses  had  originally 
been  designed  ;  nothiiag  more  than  a  searching  visit- 
ation. And  at  this  moment,  yes,  at  this  present 
midsummer  of  1856,  waiting  and  looking  forward  to 
the  self-same  joyful  renewal  of  leases  that  then  was 
looked  for  in  England,  but  not  improbably,  alas ! 
summoned  to  the  same  ineffable  disappointment  as 
fell  more  than  three  centuries    back  upon  our  own 

*  '  Camisas : '  i.  e.  chemises  ;  but  at  one  time  the  word  camisa 
was  taken  inditfrirently  for  shirt  or  chemise.  And  hence  arose 
the  term  camisado  for  a  night-attack,  in  which  the  assailants 
recognised  each  other  in  the  dark  by  their  white  shirt-sleeves, 
sometimes  further  distinguished  by  a  tight  cincture  of  broad 
black  riband.  Tlie  last  literal  camisado,  that  I  remember,  was  a 
nautical  one — a  cutting-out  enterprise  somewhere  about  1S07-8. 


282  DE    QUINCEY. 

England — lies,  waiting  for  her  doom,  a  great  kingdom 
in  central  Europe.  She,  and  under  the  same  causes, 
may  chance  to  be  disappointed.  What  was  it  that 
caused  the  tragic  convulsion  in  England  1  Simply 
this  :  regular  and  healthy  visitation  having  ceased, 
infinite  abuses  had  ari^en  ;  and  these  abuses,  it  was 
found  at  last,  could  not  be  healed  by  any  measure  less 
searching  than  absolute  suppression.  Austria,  as 
regards  some  of  her  provinces,  stands  in  the  same 
circimistances  at  this  very  moment.  Imperfect 
visitations,  that  cleansed  nothing,  should  naturally 
have  left  her  religious  establishments  languishing  for 
the  one  sole  remedy  that  was  found  applicable  to  the 
England  of  1540.  And  what  was  that  ?  It  was  a 
remedy  that  carried  along  with  it  revolution,  England 
was  found  able  in  tliose  days  to  stand  that  fierce 
medicine  :  a  more  profound  revolution  has  not  often 
been  witnessed  than  that  of  our  mighty  Reforma- 
tion. Can  Austria,  considering  the  awful  contagions 
amongst  which  her  political  relations  have  entangled 
her,  hope  for  the  same  happy  solution  of  her  case  1 
Perhaps  a  revolution,  that  once  unlocks  the  fountains 
of  blood  in  central  Germany,  wdll  be  the  bloodiest  of 
all  revolutions  :  whereas,  in  our  own  chaptei's  of 
revolution  even  the  stormiest,  those  of  the  Marian 
Persecution  and  of  the  Parliamentaiy  War,  both 
alike  moved  under  restraints  of  law  and  legislative 
policy.  The  very  bloodiest  promises  of  English 
history  have  replied  but  feebly  to  the  clamour  and 
expectations  of  cruel  or  fieiy  partisans.  Different  is 
the  prospect  for  Austria.  Erom  her,  and  from  the 
auguries  of  evil  which  becloud  her  else  smiling  atmo- 
sphei'e,  let  us  turn  back  to  our  own  histoi'y  in  this 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  283 

sixteenth  century,  and  for  a  moment  make  a  brief 
inquest  into  the  blood  that  really  was  shed — whether 
justly  or  not  justly.  Bloodshed,  as  an  instinct — 
bloodshed,  as  an  appetite — raged  like  a  monsoon  in 
the  French  Revolution,  and  many  centuries  befoi-e  in 
the  Rome  of  8ylla  and  Marius — in  the  Home  of  the 
Triumvirate,  and  generally  in  the  period  of  Proscrip- 
tions. Too  fearfully  it  is  evident  that  these  fits  of 
acharnement  were  underlaid  and  fed  by  paroxysms  of 
personal  cruelty.  In  England,  on  the  other  hand, 
foul  and  hateful  as  was  the  Marian  butchery,  never- 
theless it  cannot  be  denied  that  this  butchery  rested 
entirely  upon  principle.  Homage  offered  to  anti- 
Lutheran  principles,  in  a  moment  disarmed  the  Popish 
executioner.  Or  if  (will  be  the  objection  of  the 
reflecting  reader) — if  there  are  exceptions  to  this 
rule,  these  mi;st  be  looked  for  amongst  the  king's 
enemies.  And  the  term  '  enemies '  will  fail  to  repre- 
sent adequately  those  who,  not  content  with  ranking 
themselves  wilfully  amongst  persons  courting  objects 
irreconcilable  to  the  king's  interests,  sought  to  ex- 
asperate the  displeasure  of  Henry  by  special  insults, 
by  peculiar  mortifications,  and  by  complex  ingratitude. 
Foremost  amongst  such  cases  stands  forward  the 
separate  treason  of  Anne  Boleyn,  mysterious  to  this 
hour  in  some  of  its  features,  rank  with  pollutions 
such  as  European  prejudice  would  class  with  Italian 
enormities,  and  by  these  very  pollutions — literally  by 
and  through  the  very  excess  of  the  guilt — claiming 
to  be  incredible.  Neither  less  nor  more  than  this 
which  follows  is  the  logic  put  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Lady  Anne  Boleyn  : — From  the  mere  ent)rmity  of  the 
guilt  imputed  to  me,  from  that  very  abysmal  stye  of 


284  DE    QUINCEY. 

incestuous  adultery  in  which  now  I  wallow,  I  challenge 
as  of  right  the  presumption  that  I  am  innocent ;  for 
the  very  reason  that  I  am  loaded  in  my  impeachmeut 
with  crimes  that  ai-e  inhuman,  I  claim  to  be  no 
criminal  at  all.  Because  my  indictment  is  revolting 
and  monstrous,  therefore  is  it  incrediljle.  The  case, 
taken  apart  from  the  person,  would  not  (unless 
through  its  mysteriousness  and  imperfect  circum- 
stantiation)  have  attracted  the  interest  which  has  given 
it,  and  will  in  all  time  coming  continue  to  give  it,  a 
root  in  history  amongst  insoluble  or  doubtfully  soluble 
historical  problems.  The  ease,  being  painful  and 
shocking,  would  by  readers  generally  have  long  since 
been  dismissed  to  darkness.  But  the  persoti,  too 
critically  connected  with  a  vast  and  immortal  revolu- 
tion, will  for  ever  call  back  the  case  before  the 
tribunals  of  earth.  Tiie  mother  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
the  mother  of  Protestantism  in  England,  cannot  be 
suffered — never  tmll  be  suffered — to  benefit  by  that 
shelter  of  merciful  darkness  which,  upon  any  humbler 
person,  or  even  upon  this  person  in  any  humbler  case, 
might  be  suffered  to  settle  quietly  as  regards  the 
memory  of  her  acts.  Mr.  Froude,  a  pure-minded 
man,  is  the  last  man  to  call  back  into  the  glare  of  a 
judicial  inquest  deeds  of  horror,  over  which  eternal 
silence  should  have  brooded,  had  such  an  issue  been 
possible.  But  three  centuries  of  discussion  have 
made  that  more  and  more  impossible.  And  now, 
therefore,  with  a  view  to  the  improvement  of  the 
dispute,  and,  perhaps,  in  one  or  two  instances,  with  a 
chance  for  the  rectification  of  the  '  issues '  (speaking 
juridically)  into  which  the  question  has  been  allowed 
to  lapse,  Mr.   Froude  has  in  some  degree  re-opened 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  285 

the  discussion.  '  The  guilt,'  he  says,  *  mast  rest 
where  it  is  due.  But  uuder  any  hypothesis  guilt 
there  was — dark,  mysterious,  and  most  miserable.' 

Tell  this  story  how  you  may,  and  the  evidence 
remains  of  guilt  under  atiy  hypothesis — guilt  such  as 
in  Grecian  tragedy  was  seen  thousands  of  years  ago 
hanging  in  clouds  of  destiny  over  princely  houses, 
and  reading  to  them  a  doom  of  utter  ruin,  root  and 
branch,  in  which,  as  in  the  anai'chy  of  hurricanes,  no 
form  or  feature  was  descried  distinctly — nothing  but 
some  dim  fluctuating  phantom,  pointing  with  recording 
finger  to  that  one  ancestral  crime  thiough  which  the 
desolation  had  been  wrought. 

Mr.  Froude,  tln'ough  his  natural  sense  of  justice, 
and  his  deep  study  of  the  case,  is  unfavourably  dis- 
posed towards  the  Lady  Anne  Boleyn  :  nevertheless 
he  retains  lingering  doubts  on  her  behalf,  all  of  which, 
small  and  great,  we  have  found  reason  to  dismiss. 
We,  for  our  parts,  are  thoroughly  convinced  of  her 
guilt.  Our  faith  is,  that  no  shadow  of  any  ground 
exists  for  suspending  the  verdict  of  the  sentence ;  but 
at  the  same  time  for  mitigating  that  sentence  thei-e 
arose  this  strong  argument — namely,  that  amongst 
women  not  formally  pronounced  idiots,  there  never 
can  have  been  one  more  pitiably  imbecile. 

There  is  a  mystery  hanging  over  her  connection 
with  the  king  which  nobody  has  attempted  to  disperse 
We  will  ourselves  suggest  a  few  considerations  that 
may  bring  a  little  cohei-ency  amongst  the  scattered 
glimpses  of  her  fugitive  court  life.  The  very  first 
thought  that  presents  itself,  is  a  sentiment,  that 
would  be  pathetic  in  the  case  of  a  p^erson  entitled  to 
more  respect,  upon  the  brevity  of  her  public  career. 


286  DE    QUINCEY. 

Apparently  she  lost  the  king's  favour  almost  in  the 
very  opening  of  her  married  life.  But  in  what  way? 
Not,  we  are  persuaded,  through  the  king's  caprice. 
There  was  hardly  time  for  caprice  to  have  operated  ; 
and  her  declension  in  favour  from  that  cause  would 
have  been  gradual.  Time  there  was  none  for  her 
beauty  to  decay — neither  had  it  decayed.  We  are 
disposed  to  think  that  in  a  very  early  stage  of  her 
intercourse  with  the  king,  she  had  irritated  the  king 
by  one  indication  of  mental  imbecility  rarely  under- 
stood even  amongst  medical  men — namely,  the 
offensive  habit  of  laughing  profusely  without  the 
least  sense  of  anything  ludicrous  or  comic.  Oxford, 
or  at  least  one  of  those  who  shot  at  the  Queen,  was 
signally  distinguished  by  this  habit.  Without  reason 
or  pretext,  he  would  break  out  into  causeless  laughter, 
not  connected  with  any  impulse  that  he  could  explain. 
With  this  infirmity  Anne  Boleyn  was  plagued  in 
excess.  On  the  2nd  of  May,  1536,  the  very  first  day 
on  which  she  was  made  aware  of  the  dreadful  accusa- 
tions hanging  over  her  good  name  and  her  life,  on 
being  committed  to  the  Tower,  and  taken  by  Sir 
William  Kingston,  the  governor,  to  the  very  same 
cliambers  in  which  she  had  lain  at  the  period  of  her 
coronation,  she  said,  '  It '  (meaning  the  suite  of  rooms) 
'  is  too  good  for  me  ;  Jesu,  have  mercy  on  me  ; '  next 
she  kneeled  down,  '  weeping  a  great  space.'  Such  are 
8ir  William's  words ;  immediately  after  which  he 
adds,  '  and  in  the  same  sorrow  fell  into  a  great 
laughing.'  A  day  or  two  later  than  this,  she  said, 
'Master  Kingston,  shall  I  die  without  justice?' — 
meaning,  it  seems,  would  she  be  put  to  death  without 
any  judicial  examination  of  her  case ;  upon  which  Sir 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  287 

William  replied,  '  The  poorest  subject  the  king  hath, 
had  justice ' — meaning,  that  previously  to  such  an 
examination  of  his  case,  he  could  not  by  regular 
course  of  justice  be  put  to  death.  Such  was  the 
question  of  the  prisoner — such  was  the  answer  of  the 
king's  representative.  What  occasion  was  heie 
suggested  for  rational  laughter  1  And  yet  laughter 
was  her  sole  comment.  '  Therewith,'  says  Sir  William, 
*  she  laughed.'  On  May  18th,  being  the  day  next 
before  that  of  her  execution,  she  said,  *  Master 
Kingston,  I  hear  say  I  shall  not  die  afore  noon ;  and 
I  am  very  sorry  therefore,  for  I  thought  to  be  dead 
by  this  time,  and  past  my  pain,'  Upon  this  Sir 
William  assured  her  '  it  should  be  no  pain,  it  was  so 
subtle ; '  meaning  that  the  stroke  of  a  sword  by  a 
powerful  arm,  applied  to  a  slender  neck,  could  not 
meet  resistance  enough  to  cause  any  serious  pain. 
She  replied,  '  I  heard  say  the  executioner  was  very 
good,  and  I  have  a  little  neck ; '  after  which  she 
laughed  heartily.  Sir  William  so  much  misunder- 
stood this  laughter,  which  was  doubtless  of  the  same 
morbid  and  idiotic  character  as  all  the  previous  cases, 
that  he  supposes  her  to  have  had  '  much  joy  and 
pleasure  in  death,'  which  is  a  mere  misconstruction  of 
the  case.  Even  in  the  very  act  of  dying  she  could 
not  check  her  smiling,  which  assuredly  was  as  morbid 
in  its  quality  and  origin  as  what  of  old  was  known  as 
'  risus  sardo7iicus.' 

Carrying  along  with  us,  therefore,  a  remembrance 
of  this  lepiilsive  habit,  which  argues  a  silliness  so 
constitutional,  and  noting  also  the  obstinate  (almost 
it  might  be  called  the  brutal)  folly  with  which,  during 
the  last  seventeen  days  of  her  life,  she  persisted  in 


288  DE    QUINCEY. 

criminating  herself,  volunteering  a  continued  rehearsal 
of  conversations  the  most  profligate,  under  a  mere 
instinct  of  gossiping,  we  shall  begin  to  comprehend 
the  levity  which  no  doubt  must  have  presided  in  her 
conversations  with  the  king.  Too  evidently  in  a 
court  but  recently  emerging  from  barbarism,  there 
was  a  shocking  defect  of  rules  or  fixed  ceremonial  for 
protecting  the  dignity  of  the  queen  and  of  her  female 
attendants.  The  settlement  of  any  such  rules 
devolved  upon  the  queen  herself,  in  default  of  any 
traditional  system  ;  and  unhappily  here  was  a  queen 
without  sense,  without  prudence,  without  native  and 
sexual  dignity  for  suggesting  or  upholding  such 
restraints,  and  whose  own  breeding  and  experience 
had  been  purely  French.  Strange  it  was  that  the 
king's  good  sense,  or  even  his  jealousy,  had  not 
peremptorily  enjoined,  as  a  caution  of  mere  decency, 
the  constant  presence  of  some  elderly  matrons,  uniting 
rank  and  station  with  experience  and  good  sense. 
But  not  the  simplest  guarantees  for  ordinary  decorum 
were  apparently  established  in  the  royal  household. 
And  the  shocking  spectacle  was  daily  to  be  seen,  of  a 
young  woman,  singularly  beautiful,  atrociously  silly, 
and  without  common  self-respect,  styling  herself 
Queen  of  England,  yet  exacting  no  more  respect  or 
homage  than  a  housemaid,  suffering  yovmg  men,  the 
most  licentious  in  all  England,  openly  to  speculate  on 
the  contingency  of  her  husband's  death,  to  talk  of  it 
in  language  the  coarsest,  as  '  waiting  for  dead  men's 
shoes,'  and  bandying  to  and  fro  the  chances  that  this 
man  or  that  man,  according  to  the  whim  of  the 
morning,  should  '  have  her,'  or  should  not  '  have  her  ' 
— that  is,  have  the  reversion  of  the  queen's  person  as 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY,  289 

a  derelict  of  the  king.  All  this,  though  most  injurious 
to  her  prospects,  was  maJe  known  by  Anne  Boleyn 
herself  to  the  female  companions  who  were  appointed 
to  watch  her  revelations  in  prison.  And  certainly  no 
chambermaid  ever  rehearsed  her  own  colloquies  with 
these  vile  profligates  in  a  style  of  thinking  more  abject 
than  did  at  this  period  the  female  majesty  of  England. 
Listening  to  no  accuser,  but  simply  to  the  unsolicited 
revelations  of  the  queen  herself,  as  she  lay  in  bed 
amongst  her  female  attendants  in  the  Tower,  every 
man  of  sense  becomes  aware,  that  if  these  pre- 
sumptuous young  libertines  abstained  from  daily 
proposals  to  the  queen  of  the  most  criminal  nature, 
that  could  arise  only  from  the  reserve  and  suspicion 
incident  to  a  state  of  rivalship,  and  not  from  any 
deference  paid  to  the  queen's  personal  pretensions,  or 
to  her  public  character. 

Three  years,  probably  one-half  of  that  term,  had 
seen  the  beginning,  the  decay,  and  the  utter  extinction 
of  the  king's  affection  for  Anne.  It  is  known  now, 
and  at  the  time  it  had  furnished  a  theme  for  con- 
jecture, that  very  soon  after  his  marriage  the  king 
manifested  uneasiness,  and  not  long  after  angry 
suspicions,  upon  matters  connected  with  the  queen. 
We  have  no  doubt  that  she  herself,  whilst  seeking  to 
amuse  the  king  with  fragments  of  her  French  experi- 
ences, had,  through  mere  oversight  and  want  of  tact, 
unintentionally  betrayed  the  risks  to  which  her 
honour  had  been  at  times  exposed.  Without  presence 
of  mind,  without  inventive  talent  or  I'apidity  of 
artifice,  she  would  often  compromise  herself,  and 
overshoot  her  momentary  purposes  of  furnishing 
amusement  to  the  king.     He  had  heard  too  much. 

VOL.  I.  T 


290  DE    QUINCEY. 

He  believed  no  longer  in  her  purity.  And  very  soon, 
as  a  natural  consequence,  she  ceased  to  interest  him. 
The  vague  wish  to  get  rid  of  her  would  for  some  time 
suggest  no  hopeful  devices  towards  such  a  purpose. 
For  some  months,  apparently,  he  simply  neglected 
her.  This  neglect  unhappily  it  was  that  threw  her 
unprotected  upon  the  vile  society  of  young  libertines. 
Two  of  these — Sir  Henry  Norris  and  Sir  Francis 
Weston — had  been  privileged  friends  of  the  king. 
But  no  restraints  of  friendship  or  of  duty  had  checked 
their  designs  upon  the  queen.  Either  special  words, 
or  special  acts,  had  been  noticed  and  reported  to  the 
king.  Thenceforward  a  systematic  watch  had  been 
maintained  upon  all  parties.  Discoveries  more 
shocking  than  anybody  looked  for  had  been  made. 
The  guilty  parties  had  been  cai'eless  :  blind  them- 
selves, they  thought  all  others  blind ;  but,  during 
the  April  of  1536,  the  Privy  Council  had  been 
actively  engaged  in  digesting  and  arranging  the 
information  received. 

On  May-day,  the  most  gladsome  day  in  the  whole 
year,  according  to  the  usages  of  that  generation,  the 
dreadful  news  transpired  of  the  awful  accusations  and 
the  impending  ti'ials.  Smeton,  a  musician,  was  the 
only  person  not  of  gentlemanly  rank  amongst  the 
accused.  He  was  accused  of  adultery  with  the 
queen  ;  and  he  confessed  the  offence ;  never  retract- 
ing that  part  of  his  confession.  In  discvissing  the 
probabilities  of  the  case,  it  is  necessary  to  use  special 
and  extraordinary  caution.  The  confession,  for  in- 
stance, of  Anne  herself  has  been  treated  as  hollow 
and  unmeaning ;  because,  it  is  alleged,  the  king's 
promise    of    indulgence    and    favour   to    her   infant 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  291 

daughter  was  purchased  under  the  condition  of  con- 
fession. It  is  clear  that  such  a  ti-affic  would  not  have 
been  available  except  in  special  and  exceptional  cases. 
As  to  Smeton,  he  did  not  at  all  meet  the  king's 
expectations,  except  as  to  the  one  point  of  confessing 
the  adultery.  Consequently,  as  he  was  quite  dis- 
interested, had  nothing  at  all  to  gain,  and  did  gain 
nothing  by  his  confession,  him  we  are  obliged  to 
believe.  On  the  other  hand,  the  no«-confession  of 
some  amongst  the  gentlemen,  if  any  there  were  that 
steadfastly  adhered  to  this  non-confession,  proves 
nothing  at  all ;  since  they  thought  it  perfidy  to  con- 
fess such  a  case  against  a  woman.  JMeantime,  Con- 
stantyne,  a  known  friend  of  Sir  H.  Norris  and  of 
Sir  W.  Brereton,  two  of  the  four  gentlemen  accused, 
declares  that,  for  himself,  being  a  Protestant,  and 
knowing  the  queen's  secret  leaning  to  that  party,  he 
and  all  other  '  friends  of  the  gospel '  could  not  bring 
themselves  to  believe  that  the  queen  had  behaved  so 
abominably.  '  As  I  may  be  saved  before  God,'  he 
says,  '  I  could  not  believe  it,  afore  I  heard  them  speak 
at  their  death.  But  on  the  scaffold,  in  a  manner  all 
confessed,  unless  Norris ;  and  as  to  him,  what  he  said 
amounted  to  nothing.'  The  truth  is,  there  occurred 
in  the  cases  of  these  gentlemen  a  di-eadful  struggle. 
The  dilemma  for  them  was  perhaps  the  most  trying 
upon  record.  Gallantry  and  manly  tenderness  forbade 
any  man's  confessing,  for  a  certain  result  of  ruin  to  a 
woman,  any  ti'easonable  instances  of  love  which  she 
had  shown  to  him.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  to  deny 
was  to  rush  into  the  presence  of  God  with  a  lie  upon 
their  lips.  Hence  the  unintelligible  character  of  their 
final   declarations.      Smeton,  as   no  gentleman,   was 

T   2 


292  DE    QUINCEY. 

hanged.  All  the  other  four — Norris,  Brereton, 
Weston,  and  Eochford — Avere  beheaded.  The  four 
gentlemen  and  Smeton  suffered  all  on  the  same  day 
— namely,  Wednesday,  the  17th  of  May.  Of  all  the 
five.  Sir  W.  Brereton  was  the  only  one  whose  guilt 
was  doubted.  Yet  he  was  the  most  emphatic  in 
declaring  his  own  guilt.  If  he  could  die  a  thousand 
deaths,  he  said,  all  would  be  deserved. 

But  the  crime  of  all  the  rest  seemed  pale  by  the 
side  of  Rochford's.  He  had  been  raised  to  the 
peerage  by  Henry,  as  an  expression  of  his  kindness 
to  the  Boleyn  family.  He  was  the  brother  of  Anne  ; 
and  whilst  the  others  had  offended  by  simple  adultery 
with  Anne,  his  crime  was  incestuous  adultery ;  and 
his  dying  words  appeared  (to  the  auditors),  '  if  not,' 
says  Mr.  Froude,  '  a  confession,  yet  something  too 
nearly  resembling  it.' 

From  such  dreadful  offences,  all  readers  are  glad 
to  hurry  away ;  yet  in  one  respect  this  awful  im- 
peachment has  a  reconciling  effect.  No  reader  after 
this  wishes  for  further  life  to  Anne.  For  her  own 
sake  it  is  plain  that  through  death  must  lie  the  one 
sole  peaceful  solution  of  her  unhappy  and  erring  life. 
Some  people  have  most  falsely  supposed  that  the  case 
against  the  brother  and  sister,  whatever  might  be 
pronounced  upon  the  four  other  cases,  laboured  under 
antecedent  improbabilities  so  great  as  to  vitiate,  or 
to  load  with  svispicion,  the  entire  case  of  the  Privy 
Council.  But,  on  the  contrary,  the  shocking  mon- 
strosity of  the  charge  strengthens  the  anti-Boleyn 
impeachment.  As  a  means  for  getting  rid  of  Anne, 
the  Rochford  case  was  not  at  all  needed.  If  it  could 
even  in  dreams   be  represented  as  false,  the  injury 


STOKMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  293 

offered  to  the  Boleyns,  whilst  quite  superfluous  for 
any  purpose  of  Henry's,  would  be  too  atrocious  an 
outrage  upon  truth  and  natural  justice  for  human 
nature  to  tolerate.  The  very  stones  would  mutiny 
against  such  a  calumny  coming  as  a  crown  or  crest 
to  other  injuries  separately  unendurable,  if  they  could 
once  be  regarded  as  injuries  at  all.  Under  these 
circumstances,  what  should  we  think  of  a  call  upon 
Lord  Bei'kshire,  the  very  father  of  Anne  Boleyn,  to 
sit  as  one  of  the  judges  upon  the  cases.  Not,  indeed, 
upon  the  cases  of  his  son  and  his  daughter ;  from 
such  Roman  trials  of  fortitude  he  was  excused ;  but 
on  the  other  cases  he  was  required  to  offici  ite  as  one 
of  the  judges.  And,  in  fact,  the  array  of  rank  and 
splendour,  as  exhibited  in  the  persons  of  those  who 
composed  the  court,  surpassed  anything  previously 
known  in  England.  On  the  part  of  the  crown,  it 
was  too  keenly  felt  that  the  deep  personal  interest  of 
the  king,  in  obtaining  liberty  to  form  a  new  man-iage 
connection  with  Jane  Seymoui*,  would  triumphantly 
outweigh  all  the  justice  that  ever  could  be  arrayed 
against  the  two  Boleyns.  Nothing  could  win  a 
moment's  audience  for  the  royal  cause,  except  an  un- 
pai"alleled  and  matchless  splendour  in  the  composition 
of  the  court.  This,  therefore,  was  secured.  Pretty 
nearly  the  whole  peerage  of  that  period  was  embattled 
upon  the  bench  of  judges. 

Meantime,  the  tragedy,  so  far  as  the  queen  is 
concerned,  took  a  turn  which  convicts  all  parties  of  a 
blunder ;  of  a  blunder  the  most  needless  and  super- 
fluous. This  blunder  was  exposed  by  Bishop  Burnet 
about  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  but  most 
insufliciently  exposed ;    and  to  this  hour  it  has  not 


294  DE   QUINCE Y. 

been  satisfactorily  cleared  up.  Let  us  pursue  the 
arrears  of  the  case.  The  four  gentlemen,  together 
with  Mark  Smeton,  were  executed  (as  we  have  seen) 
on  Wednesday,  the  17th  of  May,  1536.  Two  days 
later  Queen  Anne  Boleyn  was  brought  out  at  noonday 
upon  the  verdant  lawn  within  the  Tower,  and  with 
very  slight  ceremonies  she  suffered  decapitation.  A 
single  cannon-shot  proclaimed  to  London  and  West- 
minster the  final  catastrophe  of  this  unhappy  romance. 
Anne  had  offered  not  one  wordof  self- vindication  on 
this  memorable  occasion ;  and,  if  her  motive  to  so 
signal  a  forbearance  were  i-eally  consideration  for  the 
interests  of  her  infant  daughter,  it  must  be  granted 
that  she  exhibited,  in  the  farewell  a^t  of  her  life,  a 
grandeur  of  self-conquest  which  no  man  could  have 
anticipated.  For  this  act  she  has  never  received  the 
liomage  which  she  deserved ;  whilst,  on  the  other 
hand,  praise  most  unmerited  has  been  given  for  three 
centuries  to  the  famous  letter  of  self-defence  which 
she  is  reputed  to  have  addressed  to  the  king  at  the 
opening  of  her  trial.  This  letter,  beyond  all  doubt 
a  forgery,  was  first  brought  into  effectual  notice  by 
the  Spectator  somewhere  about  1710;  and,  whether 
authentic  or  not,  is  most  injudiciously  composed.  It 
consists  of  five  paragraphs,  each  one  of  which  is 
pulling  distractedly  in  contradictory  directions. 

Meantime,  that  or  any  other  act  of  Anne  Boleyn's 
was  superseded  by  a  fatal  discovery,  which  changed 
utterly  the  relations  of  all  parties,  which  in  effect 
acquitted  Anne  of  treason,  and  which  summarily 
rehabilitated  as  untainted  subjects  of  the  king  those 
five  men  who  had  suffered  death  in  the  character  of 
traitors.     The  marriage  of  Anne  to  the  king,  it  was 


STORMS    IX    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  295 

suddenly  discovered,  had  from  the  beginning  been 
void.  It  is  true  that  we  have  long  ceased  to  accredit 
those  objections  from,  precontracts,  &c.,  which  in  the 
papal  courts  would  be  held  to  establish  a  nullity.  But 
we  are  to  proceed  by  the  laws  as  then  settled.  Grounds 
of  scruple,  which  would  now  raise  at  most  a  mere  case 
of  irregularity,  at  that  time,  unless  met  ab  initio  by 
a  papal  dispensation,  did  legally  constitute  a  flaw 
sach  as  even  a  friendly  pope  could  not  effectually 
cure ;  far  less  that  angry  priest,  blazing  up  with 
wrath,  and  at  intervals  meditating  an  interdict,  who 
at  present  occupied  the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  Here  was 
a  discovery  to  make,  after  so  much  irreparable  in- 
justice had  been  already  perpetrated  !  If  (which  is 
too  certain),  under  the  marriage  laws  then  valid, 
Anne  Boleyn  never  had  been  the  lawful  wife  of 
Henry,  then,  as  Bishop  Burnet  suddenly  objected 
Avhen  too  late  by  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  what 
became  of  the  adultery  imputed  to  Anne,  and  the  five 
young  courtiers'?  Not  being  the  king's  wife,  both 
she  was  incapable  in  law  of  committing  adultery  as 
against  the  king,  and  by  an  inevitable  consequence 
they  were  incapable  of  participating  in  a  crime  which 
she  was  incapable  of  committing. 

When  was  this  fatal  blunder  detected  ]  Evidently 
before  any  of  the  victims  had  become  cold  in  their 
gi'aves.  And  the  probability  is — that,  when  the 
blunder  was  first  perceived,  the  dreadful  consequences 
of  that  blunder,  and  the  legal  relations  of  those  con- 
sequences, were  not  immediately  discerned.  What 
convinces  us  of  this  is,  that  the  first  impulse  of  the 
king  and  his  advisers,  upon  discovering  through  a 
secret  communication  made  by  Anne  the  existence  of 


296  DE    QUINCEY, 

a  precontract,  and  the  consequent  vitiation  of  her 
marriage  with  the  king,  had  been,  to  charge  upon 
Anne  a  new  and  scandalous  offence.  Not  until  they 
had  taken  time  to  review  the  case,  did  they  become 
aware  of  the  injustice  that  had  been  perpetrated  by 
their  own  precipitance :  and  as  this  was  past  all 
reparation,  probably  it  was  agreed  amongst  the  few 
who  were  parties  to  the  fatal  oversight,  that  the 
safest  course  was  to  lock  up  the  secret  in  darkness. 
But  it  is  singular  to  watch  the  fatality  of  error  which 
pursued  this  ill-starred  marriage.  Every  successive 
critic,  in  exposing  the  errors  of  his  predecessor,  has 
himself  committed  some  fresh  blunder.  Bishop 
Burnet,  for  instance,  first  of  all  in  a  Protestant  age 
indicated  the  bloody  mistakes  of  papal  lawyers  in 
1536 ;  not  meaning  at  all  to  describe  these  mistakes 
as  undetected  by  those  who  were  answerable  for  them. 
Though  hushed  up,  they  were  evidently  known  to 
their  unhappy  authors.  Next  upon  Burnet,  down 
comes  Mr.  Froude.  Burnet  had  shaped  his  criticism 
thus :  '  If,'  he  says,  '  the  queen  was  not  married  to 
the  king,  there  was  no  adultery.'  Certainly  not. 
But,  says  Mr.  Froude,  Burnet  forgets  that  she  was 
condemned  for  conspiracy  and  incest,  as  well  as  for 
adultery.  Then  thirdly  come  we,  and  reverting  to 
this  charge  of  forgetfulness  upon  Burnet,  we  say. 
Forgets  !  but  how  was  he  bound  to  remember  ?  The 
conspiracy,  the  incest,  the  adultery,  all  alike  vanish 
from  the  record  exactly  as  the  character  of  wife 
vanishes  from  Anne.  With  any  or  all  of  these 
crimes  Henry  had  no  right  to  intermeddle.  They 
were  the  crimes  of  one  who  never  had  borne  any 
legal  relation  to  him ;  crimes,  therefore,  against  her 


STORMS    IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY.  297 

own  conscience,  but  not  against  the  king  in  any 
character  that  he  was  himself  willing  permanently  to 
assume. 

On  this  particular  section  of  Henry's  reign,  the 
unhappy  episode  of  his  second  wife,  Mr.  Froude  has 
erred  by  insufficient  rigour  of  justice.  Inclined  to 
do  more  justice  than  is  usually  done  to  the  king,  and 
not  blind  to  the  dissolute  character  of  Anne,  he  has 
yet  been  carried,  by  the  pity  inalienable  from  the 
situation,  to  concede  more  to  the  pretences  of  doubt 
and  suspense  than  is  warranted  by  the  circumstances 
of  the  case.  Anne  Boleyn  was  too  surely  guilty  up 
to  the  height  of  Messalina's  guilt,  and  far  beyond 
that  height  in  one  atrocious  instance. 

Passing  from  that  to  the  general  pretensions  of 
this  very  eloquent  and  philosophic  book,  we  desire  to 
say — that  Mr.  Froude  is  the  first  writer  (first  and 
sole)  who  has  opened  his  eyes  to  comprehend  th  e 
grandeur  of  this  ti'emendous  reign. 


THE   ENGLISH   IN   INDIA. 

In  now  reproducing  the  three  series  of  notes  on  the 
Indian  Mutiny  written  by  De  Quincey  for  me  in 
Titan,  I  must  advert  briefly  to  the  agony  of  appre- 
hension under  which  the  two  earher  chapters  were 
written.  I  can  never  forget  the  intense  anxiety  with 
wliich  he  studied  daily  the  columns  of  Tlce  Scotsman 
and  The  Times,  looking  wistfully  for  tidings  from 
Roorkhee  where  his  daughter  Florence  was  shut  up. 
The  father's  heart  was  on  the  rack  until  news  arrived 
that  the  little  garrison  was  saved. 

The  following  paragraph  from  a  letter  written  to 
his  daughter  Emily  on  Sunday,  December  1st,  1857, 
will  give  some  idea  of  the  tension  of  that  terrible 
suspense : — 

'  India. — Up  to  the  last  mail  but  one  (or  briefly  in 
its  Latin  form,  up  to  the  penultimate  mail),  I  suffered 
iu  my  nervous  system  to  an  extent  that  (except 
once,  in  1812)  had  not  experimentally  been  made 
known  to  me  as  a  possibility.  Every  night,  often- 
times all  night  long,  I  had  the  same  dream — a  vision 
of  children,  most  of  them  infants,  but  not  all,  the 
first  rank  being  girls  of  five  and  six  years  old,  who 
were  standing  in  the  air  outside,  but  so  as  to  touch 
the  window  ;  and  I  heard,  or  perhaps  fancied  that  I 
heard,  always  the  same  dreadful  word  Delhi,  not  then 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  299 

knowing  that  a  word  even  more  dreadful — Cawnpore 
— was  still  in  arrear.  This  fierce  shake  to  my 
nerves  caused  almost  from  the  beginning  a  new 
symptom  to  expose  itself  (of  which  previously  I  never 
had  the  faintest  outline),  viz.  somnambulism ;  and 
now  every  night,  to  my  great  alarm,  I  wake  up 
to  find  myself  at  the  windo\v,  which  is  sixteen  feet 
from  the  nearest  side  of  the  bed.  The  horror  was 
unspeakable  from  the  hell-dog  Nena  or  Nana ;  how 
if  this  fiend  should  get  hold  of  Florence  or  her  baby 
(now  within  seventeen  days  of  completing  her  half 
year)  1  What  first  gave  me  any  relief  was  a  good 
firm-toned  letter,  dated  Rourkee,*  in  the  public  jour- 
nals, from  which  it  w-as  plain  that  Rourkee  had  found 
itself  able  to  act  aggressively.' 

De  Quincey  had  reason  to  be  proud  of  his  son-in- 

■  law.  Colonel  Baird  Smith,  whose  varied  and  brilliant 

services,    culminating    at    the    siege    of    Delhi,    are 

written  in  the  pages  of  Sir  John  K aye's  and  Colonel 

Malleson's  History  of  the  Sepoy  War. 

On  that  fateful  day  at  Delhi,  when  so  much  hung 
upon  the  decision  as  to  whether  the  British  should 
liold  the  grounl  they  had  won  in  the  first  assault,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  '  the  splendid  obstinacy ' 
of  Baird  Smith  practically  saved  India. 

I  throw  together  a  few  passages  from  the  thi-illing 
pages  where  the  story  is  told — sufiicient  to  enable 
the  reader  who  comes  fresh  to  the  subject,  to  under- 
stand what  manner  of  man  this  gallant  engineer  was 
who  made  his  mark  on  British  India. 

*  Anglo-Indian  aiitliorities  seem  to  spell  this  word  iu  four 
ditferent  ways. — H. 


303  DB    QUINCEY. 

Rurki  (or  Roorkhee)  was  the  head-quarters  of  the 
Engineering  Science  of  the  country.  When  the 
news  came  of  the  Delhi  massacre,  Baird  Smith  in- 
stantly made  'admirable  arrangements  for  the  defence 
of  the  great  engineering  depot,  in  which  he  took  such 
earnest  and  loving  interest.  Officially,  he  was  super- 
intendent of  irrigation  in  the  north-western  pro- 
vinces— a  most  useful  functionary,  great  in  all  the 
arts  of  peace,  and  with  a  reputation  which  any  man 
might  be  proud  to  possess.  But  the  man  of  much 
science  now  grew  at  once  into  the  man  of  war,  and 
Rurki  became  a  garrison  under  his  command.  Not 
an  hour  was  lost.' 

*  *  a^  *  ^  ik 

His  timely  express  to  Major  Charles  Reid  to  bring 
his  men  on  by  the  Ganges  Canal  route  instead  of  by 
forced  mai'ches  was  an  early  evidence  of  his  combina- 
tion of  dash  and  sound  judgment.  Reid  said,  that 
it  saved  the  place  and  the  lives  of  the  ladies  and 
children. 

Fi'om  the  hour  that  he  made  his  appearance  before 
Delhi  as  Chief  Engineer,  a  succession  of  incidents 
stand  on  record  which  show  his  skill  and  courage. 
On  the  first  occasion  of  Brigadier-General  Wilson 
consulting  him  professionally,  '  he  threw  all  the 
earnestness  of  his  nature  into  a  great  remonstrance 
against  the  project  of  withdrawal.  He  told  the 
General  that  to  raise  the  siege  would  be  fatal  to  our 
national  interests.  '  It  is  our  duty,'  he  said,  *  to 
retain  the  grip  which  we  now  have  upon  Delhi,  and 
to  hold  on  like  Grim  Death  until  the  place  is  our 
own.'  He  argued  it  ably.  Wilson  listened,  and  was 
convinced. 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  301 

In  that  supreme  moment  at  the  storming  of  Delhi, 
when  the  repulse  of  two  columns,  the  heavy  losses, 
and  the  great  strength  of  the  place  caused  the 
General  to  hesitate  whether  to  continue  the  opera- 
tions, England  had  cause  to  feel  thankful  for  the 
tenacity  and  daring  of  two  of  her  sons  ; — 

'  From  this  fatal  determination  General  Wilson 
was  saved  by  the  splendid  obstinacy  of  Baird 
S.MiTH,  aided  by  the  soldier-like  instincts  of  Neville 
Chamberlain.  *  *  *  *  The  General  undoubtedly 
believed  that  the  safety  of  the  army  would  be  com- 
promised by  the  retention  of  the  positions  they  had 
gained.  Fortunately,  Baird  Smith  was  at  his  elbow. 
Appealed  to  by  General  Wilson  as  to  whether  he 
thought  it  possible  for  the  army  to  retain  the  ground 
they  had  won,  his  answer  was  short  and  decisive, 
"  We  must  do  so  !  "  That  was  all.  But  the  uncom- 
promising tone,  the  resolute  manner,  the  authority 
of  the  speaker,  combined  to  make  it  a  decision  against 
which  there  was  no  appeal.  General  Wilson 
accepted  it.  *  *  *  *  It  is  not  too  much  to 
affirm,  that  a  retrograde  movement  would,  for  the 
time,  have  lost  India.' 

****** 

In  spite  of  the  sufferings  attendant  on  a  severe 
wound,  the  indomitable  spirit  of  this  brave  soldier 
carried  him  through  all  trials  until  India  was  practi- 
cally saved.  Then,  shattered  by  his  many  exertions, 
the  breathing  time  came  too  late.  His  career  is 
thus  summed  up  in  the  following  inscription  on  his 
tomb  in  Calcutta  Cathedral : — 

'  Colonel  Richard  Baird  Smith  of  the  Bengal 
Engineers,  Master  of   the  Calcutta    Mint,  C.B.  and 


302  DE    QUINCEY. 

A.D.C.  to  the  Queeu,  whose  career,  crowded  with 
brilHant  service,  cut  short  at  ibs  brightest,  was  born 
at  Lasswade  on  the  31st  of  December,  1818.  He 
went  to  India  in  1836.  Already  distinguished  in  the 
two  Sikh  wars,  his  conduct  on  the  outbreak  of  revolt 
in  1857  showed  what  a  clear  apprehension,  a  stout 
heart,  and  a  hopeful  spirit  could  effect  with  scanty 
means  in  crushing  disorder.  Called  to  Delhi  as  chief 
engineer,  his  bold  and  ready  judgment,  his  weighty 
and  tenacious  counsels,  played  a  foremost  part  in 
securing  the  success  of  the  siege  and  England's 
supremacy.  The  gathered  wisdom  of  many  years 
spent  in  administering  the  irrigation  of  Upper  India, 
trained  him  for  his  crowning  service — the  survey  of 
the  great  famine  of  1861,  the  provision  of  relief,  and 
the  suggestions  of  safeguards  against  such  calamities. 
Broken  by  accumulated  labour's,  he  died  at  sea,  Dec.  1 3, 
1861,  aged  scarcely  43  years.  At  Madras,  where  his 
Indian  career  began,  his  body  awaits  the  resurrection.' 
His  great  work,  the  Report  on  Italian  Irrigation, 
published  with  maps  and  plans  in  1852,  remains  a 
monument  of  his  engineering  ability.  Colonel  Baird 
Smith  also  published  : — 

(1)  Agricultural  Resources  of  the  Punjab.  London  : 
1849.     8vo. 

(2)  The  Cauvery,  Kistnah,  and  Godavery ;  being  a 
report  on  the  works  constructed  on  these  rivers  for  the 
Irrigation  of  the  ^jrovinces  of  Tanjore,  Guntoor, 
Masuli2)atani,  and  Rajahmundry,  in  the  Presidency  of 
Madras.     London :  1856.     8vo. 

(3)  A  Short  Account  of  the  Ganges  Canal,  with  a 
descri]}tion  of  some  of  the  Principal  Works.  40  pp. 
.Thomason  College  Press,  Roorkee  :  1870.     8vo. — H. 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  303 


HURRIED    NOTICES    OF    INDIAN    AFFAIRS. 

{September,  1857.) 

From  the  foundations  of  the  earth,  no  case  in 
human  action  or  suffering  has  occurred  which  could 
less  need  or  less  tolerate  the  aid  of  artificial  rhetoric 
than  that  tremendous  ti-agedy  which  now  for  three 
months  long  has  been  moving  over  the  plains  of 
Hindostan.  What  in  Grecian  days  were  called  apor- 
reta  (aTropprjTo),  things  not  utterable  in  human  language 
or  to  human  ears — things  ineffable — things  to  be 
whispered — things  to  dream  of,  not  to  tell  * — these 
things  amongst  high-caste  Brahi^ims,  and  amongst  the 
Eajapoots,  or  martial  race  of  heroes,  have  been  the 
common  product  of  the  passing  hour.t  Is  this  well  I 
Is  this  a  fitting  end  for  the  mighty  religious  system 
that  through  countless  generations  has  overshadowed 
India  1  Yes,  it  is  well :  it  is  a  fitting  end  for  that 
man-destroying  system,  more  cruel  than  the  bloody 
religions  of  Mexico,  which,  for  the  deification  of  the 
individual,  made  hopeless  Helots  of  the  multitude. 
Henceforward  caste  must  virtually  be  at  an  end. 
Upon  caste  has  our  Bengal  army  founded  a  final  treason 
bloodier  and  larger  than  any  known  to  human  annals. 
Now,  therefore,  mere  instincts  of  self-preservation  — 
mere  shame — mere  fiery  stress  of  necessity,  will  com- 
pel our  East  India  Directory  (or  whatsoever  power 

*  *  A  sight  to  dream  of,  not  to  tell.' — Coleridge. 
t  Twenty-three   and    twenty-eight    thousand  of   these   two 
orders  we  have  in  our  Bengal  army. 


304  DE    QUINCEY. 

may  now  under  parliamentary  appointment  inherit 
their  responsibilities)  to  proscribe,  once  and  for  ever, 
by  steadfast  exclusion  from  all  possibility  of  a  martial 
career — to  ruin  by  legal  degradation  and  incapacities, 
all  Hindoo  pretensions  to  places  of  trust,  profit,  or 
public  dignity  which  found  themselves  upon  high 
caste,  as  Brahmins  or  Rajapoots.  Yes,  it  is  well  that 
the  high-cas^e  men,  who  existed  only  for  the  general 
degradation  of  their  own  Hindoo  race  in  hvimbler 
stations,  have  themselves  severed  the  links  which 
connected  them  with  the  glory  (so  unmerited  for 
them)  of  a  nobler  Western  nationality.  Bought 
though  it  is  by  earthly  ruin,  by  torment,  many  times 
by  indignities  past  utterance  inflicted  upon  our  dear 
massacred  sisters,  and  upon  their  unoffending  infants, 
yet  for  that  very  reason  we  must  now  maintain  the 
great  conquest  so  obtained.  There  is  no  man  living 
so  base — no,  there  is  not  a  felon  living  amongst  us,  who 
could  be  persuaded  to  repeat  the  act  of  the  Grecian 
leader  Agamemnon — namely,  to  sacrifice  his  innocent 
daughter,  just  entering  the  portals  of  life  in  its  most 
golden  stage,  on  the  miserable  pretence  of  winning 
a  public  benefit ;  masking  a  diabolical  sel6shness  by 
the  ostentation  of  public  spirit.  Yet  if  some  calamity, 
or  even  some  atrocity,  had  carried  off  the  innocent 
creature  under  circumstances  which  involved  an  ad- 
vantage to  her  country,  or  to  coming  generations, 
the  most  loving  father  might  gradually  allow  himself 
to  draw  consolation  from  the  happy  consequences  of 
a  crime  which  he  would  have  died  to  prevent.  Even 
such  a  mixed  necessity  of  feeling  presses  upon  our- 
selves at  present.  From  the  bloody  graves  of  our 
dear  martyred  sisters,  scattered  over  the  vast  plains 


I 

i 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  305 

of  India,  rises  a  solemn  adjuration  to  the  spiritual  ear 
of  Him  that  listens  with  understanding.  Audibly 
this  spiritual  voice  says  :  O  dear  distant  England  ! 
mighty  to  save,  were  it  not  that  in  the  dreadful  hour 
of  our  trial  thou  wert  far  away,  and  heardest  not  the 
screams  of  thy  dying  daughters  and  of  their  perishing 
infants.  Behold !  for  us  all  is  finished  !  We  from 
our  bloody  graves,  in  which  all  of  us  are  sleeping  to 
the  resun-ection,  send  xip  united  prayers  to  thee,  that 
upon  the  everlasting  memory  of  our  hell-born  wrongs, 
thou,  beloved  mother,  wouldst  engraft  a  counter- 
memory  of  everlasting  retribution,  inflicted  upon  the 
Moloch  idolatries  of  India.  Upon  the  pride  of  caste 
rests  for  its  ultimate  root  all  this  towei'ing  tragedy, 
which  now  hides  the  very  heavens  from  India.  Grant, 
therefore,  O  distant,  avenging  England — grant  the 
sole  commensurate  return  which  to  us  can  be  granted 
— us  women  and  'children  that  ti^od  the  fields  of  car- 
nage alone — grant  to  our  sufferings  the  virtue  and 
lasting  efficacy  of  a  lutron  (Xvrpov),  or  ransom  paid 
down  on  behalf  of  every  creature  groaning  under  the 
foul  idol  of  caste.  Only  by  the  sufferance  of  England 
can  that  idolatry  prosper.  Thou,  therefore,  England, 
when  Delhi  is  swept  by  the  ploughshare  and  sown 
with  salt,  build  a  solitary  monument  to  us ;  and  on 
its  base  inscribe  that  the  last  and  worst  of  the  mur- 
derous idolatries  which  plagued  and  persecuted  the 
generations  of  men  was  by  us  abolished ;  and  that  by 
women  and  children  was  the  pollution  of  caste  cleansed 
fiom  the  earth  for  ever  ! 


Now    let    us  descend    into    the  circumstantialities 
of  the  case,  explaining  what  may  have  been  obscure 
VOL.  I.  u 


306  DE    QUINCEY. 

to  the  general  reader.  By  which  term  general  reader 
is  meant,  that  reader  who  has  had  no  reason  for 
cultivating  any  acquaintance  whatever  with  India ; 
to  whom,  therefore,  the  whole  subject  is  unbroken 
ground  ;  and  who  neither  knows,  nor  pretends  to 
know,  the  merest  outline  of  our  British  connection 
with  India ;  what  first  carried  us  thither ;  what 
accidents  of  good  luck  and  of  imminent  peril  raised 
us  from  a  mere  commercial  to  a  political  standing ; 
how  we  improved  this  standing  by  prodigious  energy 
into  the  position  of  a  conquering  state ;  prospered 
rapidly  by  the  opposition  which  we  met ;  overthrew 
even  our  European  competitors,  of  whom  the  deadliest 
were  the  French  ;  pursued  a  difficult  war  with  an  able 
Mahometan  upstart,  Hyder  Ali— a  treacherous  and 
cruel  prince  ;  next  with  his  son,  Tippoo  Sahib,  a  still 
more  ferocious  scoundrel,  who,  in  his  second  war  with 
us,  was  settled  effectually  by  one  thrust  of  a  bayonet 
in  the  hands  of  an  English  soldier.  This  war,  and 
the  consequent  division  of  Tippoo's  dominions,  closed 
the  eighteenth  century.  About  1817  we  undertook 
the  great  Mahratta  war;  the  victorious  termination 
of  which  placed  us,  after  sixty  years  of  struggle,  in 
the  supreme  rank  amongst  Indian  potentates.  All 
the  rest  of  our  power  and  greatness  accrued  to  us  by 
a  natui-al  and  spontaneous  evolution  of  consequences, 
most  of  whi(;h  would  have  followed  us  as  if  by  some 
magnetic  attraction,  had  we  ourselves  been  passive. 
No  conquering  state  was  ever  yet  so  mild  and  be- 
neficent in  the  spirit  of  its  government,  or  so  free 
from  arrogance  in  its  demeanour.  An  impression 
thoroughly  false  prevails  even  amongst  ourselves, 
that  we  have  pursued  a  systematic  course  of  usiu-pa- 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  307 

tions,  and  have  displaced  all  the  ancient  thrones  of 
Hindostan.  Unfortunately  for  this  representation, 
it  happens  that  all  the  leading  princes  of  India  whose 
power  and  rank  brought  them  naturally  into  collision 
with  ourselves,  could  not  be  ancient,  having  been 
originally  official  dependants  upon  the  great  Tartar 
prince,  whose  throne  was  usually  at  Agra  or  Delhi, 
and  whom  we  called  sometimes  the  Emperor,  or  the 
Shah,  or  more  often  the  Great  Mogul.  During  the 
decay  of  the  Mogul  throne  throughout  the  eighteenth 
century,  these  dependent  princes  had,  by  continual 
encroachments  on  the  weakness  of  their  sovereign, 
made  themselves  independent  rulers ;  but  they  could 
not  be  older  than  the  great  Mogul  Shah  himself,  who 
had  first  created  them.  Now  the  Mogul  throne  was 
itself  a  mere  modern  creation,  owing  its  birth  to 
Baber,  the  great-grandson  of  Tamerlane.  But  Baber, 
the  eldest  of  these  Tai'tar  princes,  synchronised  with 
our  English  Henry  YIII.  In  reality,  there  was 
nothing  old  in  India  that  could  be  displaced  by  us ; 
at  least  amongst  the  Mahometan  princes.  Some 
ancient  Hindoo  Rajahs  there  were  in  obscure  corners, 
but  without  splendour  of  wealth  or  military  distinc- 
tion ;  and  the  charge  of  usurpation  was  specially 
absurd,  since  we  pre-eminently  were  the  king-makers, 
the  king-supporters,  the  king-pensioners,  in  Hindo- 
stan ;  and  excepting  the  obscure  princes  just  men- 
tioned, almost  every  Indian  prince,  at  the  time  of  our 
opening  business  in  the  political  line,  happened  to  be 
a  usurper.  We  ourselves  made  the  Rajah  of  Oude 
into  a  king ;  we  ourselves  more  than  once  saved  the 
supreme  Shah  {i.  e.  the  Great  Mogul)  from  military 
ruin,  and  for  many  a  year  saved  hhn  and  his  from 

U  2 


308  DE   QUINCEY. 

the  painful  condition  of  insolvency.  But  all  this  is 
said  in  the  way  of  pai^enthesis.  In  another  number,  a 
sketch  of  our  Indian  Empire,  in  its  growth  and  early 
oscillations,  may  be  presented  to  the  reader,  specially 
adapted  to  the  use  of  those  whose  reading  has  not 
lain  in  that  direction.  Now  let  us  return  to  the 
great  domineering  question  of  the  hour— the  pi-esent 
tremendous  revolt  on  the  part  of  seventy  or  eighty 
thousand  men  in  our  Bengal  Presidency. 

This  mutiny  we  propose  to  notice  briefly  but  search- 
ingly  under  three  heads — first,  in  its  relation  to  the 
mutineers  themselves ;  next,  in  its  relation  to  our- 
selves ;  but,  subdividing  that  question,  we  will  assign 
the  second  head  to  the  consideration  of  its  probable 
bearing  on  our  political  credit  and  reputation  ;  whilst 
the  third  head  may  be  usefiilly  given  to  the  consider- 
ation of  its  bearing  on  our  pecuniary  interests,  and 
our  means  of  effectual  reparation  for  the  ruins  left 
behind  by  rebellion,  and  by  the  frantic  spasms  of 
blind  destruction. 

First,  then,  let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  this  great 
tumultuary  movement,  as  it  points  more  or  less 
obscurely  to  the  ulterior  purposes  of  the  mutineers, 
and  the  temper  in  which  they  pursue  those  purposes. 
In  a  newspaper  of  Saturday,  August  15,  we  observe 
the  following  sentence  introductory  to  a  most  unsatis- 
factory discussion  of  the  Indian  revolt : — *  The  mutiny 
in  India,  from  the  uninterrupted  nature  of  its  pro- 
gress, and  its  rapid  spread  through  every  considerable 
station,  shows  a  power  of  combination  and  deter- 
mination which  has  never  before  been  given  credit 
for  to  the  native  Indian  mind.'  This  passage  is  cited 
by  us,  not  for  anything  plausible  in  its  views,  but  for 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  309 

the  singular  felicity  of  contradiction  whicli  fortunately 
it  offers  to  every  indication  of  the  true  disposable 
ability  that  is  now,  or  ever  has  been,  at  the  service 
of  the  insurgents.  This,  indeed,  is  rapidly  becoming 
of  very  subordinate  importance ;  since  the  ablest 
rebel,  without  an  army,  must  be  contemptible  enough. 
But  with  a  view  to  the  larger  question — What  quality 
of  opposition  is  ever  likely  to  be  brought  into  play 
against  us,  not  in  merely  military  displays,  but  in 
the  secret  organisation  of  plots  and  local  tumults, 
propagated  over  extensive  provinces?  Some  degree 
of  anxiety  is  reasonable  under  any  possible  condition 
of  the  army ;  and  this  being  so,  it  is  satisfactory  to 
observe,  now  in  1857,  the  same  childishness  and  defect 
of  plan  and  coherent  purpose  as  have  ever  cha- 
racterised the  oriental  mind.  No  foresight  has  been 
exhibited ;  no  concert  between  I'emote  points ;  no 
preparation ;  no  tendency  towards  combined  action. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  most  justly  noticed  by 
a  new  London  paper,  of  the  same  date — namely,  the 
Peo2)le — that  it  is  perfectly  dazzling  to  the  mind  to 
review  over  the  whole  face  of  India,  under  almost 
universal  desertion,  the  attitude  of  erectness  and  pre- 
paration assumed  by  the  scattered  parties  of  our  noble 
countrymen — '  everywhere  '  (says  the  People)  '  di'iven 
to  bay,  and  everywhere  turning  upon  and  scattering 
all  assailants.  From  all  parts  is  the  same  tale.  No 
matter  how  small  the  amount  of  the  British  force 
may  be,  if  it  were  but  a  captain's  company,  it  holds 
its  own.'  On  the  other  hand,  what  single  success 
have  the  rebels  achieved  1  Most  valiant,  no  doubt, 
they  have  shown  themselves  in  hacking  to  pieces  poor 
fugitive  women,  most  intrepid  in  charging  a  column 


310  DE    QUINCEY. 

of  infants.  Else,  what  have  they  to  show  1  Delhi  is 
the  solitary  post  which  they  have  for  the  moment 
secured ;  but  even  that  through  the  incomprehensible 
failure  of  the  authorities  at  Meerut,  and  not  through 
any  vigour  manifested  by  themselves.  Any  uneasi- 
ness which  still  possesses  the  minds  of  close  observers 
fastens  upon  these  two  points— first,  upon  the  disarm- 
ings,  as  distinguished  from  the  desertions ;  secondly, 
upon  the  amount,  and  probable  equipment,  and  sup- 
posed route  of  stragglers.  It  is  now  said  that  the 
mutiny  has  burned  itself  out  from  mere  defect  of 
fuel ;  there  can  be  no  more  revolts  of  sepoys,  seeing 
that  no  sepoys  now  remain  to  revolt ;  that  is,  of  the 
Bengal  force.  But  in  this  general  statement  a  great 
distinction  is  neglected.  E,egiments  once  disarmed, 
if  also  stripped  of  their  2)rivate  m'ms,  whether  deserters 
or  not,  are  of  slight  account ;  but  the  grave  question 
is  this — how  niany  of  (say  seventy)  regiments  have 
gone  off  previously  to  the  disarming.  Even  in  that 
case,  the  most  favourable  for  them  where  arms  are 
secured,  it  is  true  that  ammunition  will  very  soon 
fail  them ;  but  still  their  bayonets  will  be  available  ; 
and  we  believe  that  the  East  India  infantry  carry 
swords.  A  second  anxiety  connects  itself  with  the 
vast  number  of  vagrant  marauding  soldiers,  having 
power  to  unite,  and  to  assail  small  detached  stations 
or  private  bungalows.  Yet,  again,  in  cases  known 
specially  to  ourselves,  the  inhabitants  of  such  small 
insulated  stations  had  rapidly  fortified  the  buildings 
best  fitted  for  defence.  Already,  by  the  18th  of 
May,  in  a  station  not  far  from  Delhi,  this  had  been 
effected ;  every  native  servant,  male  or  female,  had 
been  discharged  instantly  ;  and  perhaps  they  would 


THE    ENGLISH   IN    INDIA.  311 

be  able  to  strengthen  themselves  with  artillery.  The 
hoiTors  also  of  the  early  murders  at  Delhi  would  be 
likely  to  operate  beneficially,  by  preventing  what 
otherwise  is  sure  to  happen — namely,  the  disposition 
to  relax  in  vigilance  as  first  impressions  wear  off. 
Considering,  upon  the  whole,  the  amount  of  regiments 
that  may  be  assumed  as  absolutely  disarmed  and 
neutralised  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  counting  the 
5000  and  upwards  of  troops  intercepted  on  their 
route  to  Hong-Kong,  and  adding  these  to  at  least 
25,000  of  Queen's  troops  previously  in  the  country, 
counting  also  the  faithful  section  of  the  Sikhs,  the 
Ghoorkas,  and  others  that  could  be  relied  on,  the 
upshot  must  be,  that  at  least  40,000  troops  of  the 
best  quality  are  scattered  between  the  Hoogly  and 
the  Sutlege  (or,  in  other  words,  between  Calcutta  and 
Loodiana  *).  Beyond  a  few  casual  outrages  on  some 
small  scale,  we  hope  that  no  more  of  bloody  tragedies 
can  be  noic  (August  25)  apprehended.  But  we,  that 
have  dear  friends  in  Bengal,  must,  for  weeks  to  come, 
feel  restless  and  anxious.  Still,  this  is  a  great  miti- 
gation of  the  horror  that  besieged  our  anticipations 
six  weeks  ago. 

But,  having  thrown  a  glance  at  the  shifting  aspects 
of  the  danger,  now  let  us  alight  for  a  moment  on  the 
cause  of  this  dreadful  outbreak.  We  have  no  separate 
information  upon  this  part  of  the  subject,  but  we  have 
the  results  of   our  own  vigilant    observations    upon 

*  '  Loodiana : ' — The  veiy  last  station  in  Bengal,  on  going 
westwards  to  the  Indus.  In  Runjeet  Singh's  time  this  was  for 
many  years  the  station  at  which  we  lodged  our  Atl'ghan 
pensioner,  the  Shah  Soojah — too  happy,  had  he  never  left  his 
Loodiana  lodgmgs. 


312  DE    QUINCEY. 

laying  this  and  that  together;  and  so  much  we  will 
communicate.  From  the  first,  we  have  rejected  in- 
credulously the  immoderate  effects  ascribed  to  the 
greased  cartridges  ;  and  not  one  rational  syllable  is 
there  in  the  pretended  rumours  about  Christianising 
the  army.  Not  only  is  it  impossible  that  folly  so 
gross  should  maintain  itself  against  the  unremitting 
evidence  of  facts,  all  tending  in  the  opposite  direction  ; 
but,  moreover,  under  any  such  idle  solution  as  this, 
there  would  still  remain  another  point  unaccounted 
for,  and  that  is  the  frantic  hatred  borne  towards  our- 
selves by  many  of  the  rebellious  troops.  Some  of  our 
hollow  friends  in  France,  Belgium,  &c.,  profess  to  read 
in  this  hatred  an  undeniable  inference  that  we  must 
have  treated  the  sepoys  harshly,  else  how  explain  an 
animosity  so  deadly.  To  that  argument  we  have  a 
very  brief  answer,  such  as  seems  decisive.  The 
Bengalese  sepoy,*  when  most  of  all  pressed  for  some 
rational  explanation  of  his  fury,  never  once  thought 
of  this  complaint ;  besides  which,  it  is  too  notorious 
that  our  fault  has  always  lain  the  other  way.  Heavily 
criminal,  in  fact,  we  had  been  by  our  lax  discipline ; 
and    in    particular,    the    following   most    scandalous 

*  For  the  sake  of  readers  totally  unacquainted  with  the 
subject,  it  may  be  as  well  to  make  an  explanation  or  two.  The 
East  India  regiments  generally  run  to  pretty  high  numbers — 
1000  or  1200.  The  high  commissioned  officers,  as  the  captain, 
lieutenant,  &c.,  are  always  British;  but  the  iwn-commissioned 
officers  are  always  native  Hindoos — that  is,  sepoys.  For  instance, 
the  na'ik,  or  corporal ;  the  havildar,  or  serjeant : — even  of  the 
commissioned  officers,  the  lowest  are  unavoidably  native,  on 
account  of  the  native  private.  Note  that  srpoy,  as  colloquially 
it  is  called,  but  sipahee,  as  in  books  it  is  often  written,  does  not 
mean  Hindoo  or  Hindoo  soldier,  but  is  simply  the  Hindoo  word 
for  soldier. 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  313 

breach  of  discipline  must  have  been  silently  connived 
at  for  years  by  British  authorities.  Amongst  the 
outward  forms  of  respect  between  man  and  man,  there 
is  none  that  has  so  indifferently  belonged  to  all 
nations,  as  the  act  of  rising  from  a  sedentary  posture 
for  the  purpose  of  expressing  respect.  Most  other 
forms  of  i-espect  have  varied  with  time  and  with 
place.  The  ancient  Romans,  for  instance,  never 
bowed  ;  and  amongst  orientals,  you  are  thought  to 
offer  an  insult  if  you  uncover  your  head.  In  this 
Kttle  England  of  ours,  who  could  fancy  two  stout  men 
curtseying  to  each  other  ]  Yet  this  they  did,  and  so 
recently  as  in  Shakspere's  days.  To  use  his  words, 
they  'crook'd  the  pregnant  hinges  of  the  knee.' 
Sometimes  they  curtseyed  with  the  right  knee  singly, 
sometimes  with  both,  as  did  Romeo  to  the  fiery 
Tybalt.  Many  and  rapid,  therefore,  were  the  changes 
in  ceremonial  forms,  at  least  with  us,  the  changeable 
men  of  Christendom ;  else  how  could  it  happen,  that, 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  back,  men  of  rank  in 
England  should  have  saluted  each  other  by  forms 
that  now  would  be  thought  to  indicate  lunacy  1  And 
yet,  violent  as  the  spirit  of  change  might  otherwise 
be,  one  thing  never  changed — the  expression  of  respect 
between  man  and  man  by  rising  from  their  seats. 

'  Utque  viro  sancto  cJwrus  assxcrrexcrit  omiiis  ' 

is  a  record  belonging  to  the  eldest  of  days ;  and  that 
it  belonged  not  to  the  eldest  times  only,  but  also  to 
the  highest  rank,  is  involved  in  a  memorable  anecdote 
from  the  last  days  of  Julius  Caesar.  He,  the  mighty 
dictator — 

'  Yes,  he,  the  foremost  mau  of  all  this  world  ' — 


314  DE    QUINCE Y. 

actually  owed  his  assassination,  under  one  represent- 
ation, to   the    burning  resentment    of    his  supposed 
aristocratic  hauteur  in  a  public  neglect  of  this  very- 
form.      A    deputation    of    citizens,    on   a  matter    of 
business,  had    found    him    seated,  and   to    their  im- 
measurable disgust,  he  had  made  no  effort  even  to 
rise.     His   friends    excused   him    on    the  allegation, 
whether  true  or  not,   that  at    the  moment  he  was 
physically  incapacitated  from  rising  by  a  distressing 
infirmity.     It  might  be  so  :  as  Shakspere  elsewhere 
observes,  the  black  silk  patch  knows  best  whether 
there  is  a  wound  underneath  it.     But,  if  it  were  not 
so,   then  the  imperial  man  paid  the  full  penalty  of 
his  offence,  supposing  the  rancorous  remembrance  of 
that  one  neglect  were  truly  and  indeed  what  armed 
the  Ides  of  March  against  his  life.     But,  were  this 
story  as  apocryphal  as  the  legends  of  our  nurseries, 
still  the  bare  possibility  that '  the  laurelled  majesty  '  * 
of  that  mighty  brow  should  have  been  laid  low  by  one 
frailty  of  this  particular  description — this  possibility 
recalls  us  clamorously  to  the  treasonable  character  of 
such  an  insolence,  when  pi'actised  systematically  for 
the   last  eighteen  months    by  a  Pagan  hound,  by  a 
sepoy  from  Lucknow  or  Benares,  towards  his  British 
commanding  oiEcer.     Shall  it  have  been  possible  that 
the   founder  of  the   Roman  empire  died  for  having 
ignored  the  decencies  of   human   courtesy,    perhaps 
through    momentary   inattention,    by   wandering   of 
thoughts,  or  by  that  collapse  of  energy  which  some- 

*  '  The  laurelled  majesty,'  &c.  : — A.  flying  reference  to  a  grand 
expression— ??iry>sta.9  laurea  frontis — winch  occurs  in  a  Latin 
supplement  to  the  Pharsalia  by  May,  an  English  poet,  contem- 
porary with  the  latter  days  of  Shakspere. 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  315 

times  steps  between  our  earnest  intentions  and  their 
fulfilment — this  man,  so  august,  shall  he  have  expiated 
by  a  bloody  death  one  fleeting  moment  of  forgetful- 
ness?  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  under  our  Indian 
government,  the  lowest  of  our  servants,  a  muss  of 
carrion  from  a  brotherhood  of  Thugs,  shall  have  had 
free  license  to  insult  the  leaders  of  the  army  which 
finds  bread  for  him  and  his  kindred  1  That  the  reader 
may  understand  what  it  is  that  we  are  talking  of — 
not  very  long  ago,  in  one  of  the  courts-martial 
occasioned  by  some  explosions  of  tentative  insubordin- 
ation preliminary  to  the  grand  revolt,  a  British  ofiicer, 
holding  the  rank  of  lieutenant,  made  known  to  the 
court,  that  through  the  last  twelve  or  eighteen 
months  he  had  been  struck  and  shocked  by  one 
alarming  phenomenon  within  the  cantonments  of  the 
sepoys  :  formerly,  on  his  entering  the  lines,  the  men 
had  risen  respectfully  from  their  seats  as  he  walked 
along;  but  since  1854,  or  thereabouts,  they  had 
insolently  looked  him  in  the  face,  whilst  doggedly 
retaining  their  seats.  Now  this  was  a  punishable 
breach  of  discipliue,  which  in  our  navy  would  be 
punished  without  fail.  Even  a  little  middy,  fresh 
from  the  arms  of  his  sisters  or  his  nurse,  and  who 
does  not  bear  any  royal  commission,  as  an  ensign  or 
cornet  in  the  army,  is  thus  supported  in  the  perform- 
ance of  his  duty,  and  made  respectable  in  the  eyes  of 
his  men,  though  checked  in  all  explosions  of  childish 
petulance — even  to  this  child,  as  an  ofiicer  in  command, 
respect  is  exacted  ;  and  on  the  finest  arena  of  dis- 
cipline ever  exhibited  to  the  world,  it  is  habitually 
felt  that  from  open  disrespect  to  the  ruin  of  all 
discipline    the    steps   of    descent    are   rapid.      This 


316  DE    QUINCEY. 

important  fact  in  evidence  as  to  tlie  demeanour  of 
the  sepoy,  throws  a  new  light  upon  the  whole  revolt. 
Manifestly  it  had  been  moulding  and  preparing  itself 
for  the  last  two  years,  or  more.  And  those  autho- 
rities who  h;id  tolerated  Colonel  Wheler  for  months, 
might  consistently  tolerate  this  presumption  in  the 
sepoy  for  a  year. 


We  had,  in  reliance  upon  receiving  fuller  materials 
for  discvission  by  the  Eastern  mail  arriving  in  the 
middle  of  August,  promised  by  anticipation  two  heads 
for  our  review,  which,  under  the  imperfect  explana- 
tions received,  we  are  compelled  to  defer.  Meantime, 
upon  each  of  these  two  heads  we  shall  point  the 
attention  of  our  readers  to  one  or  two  important  facts, 
First,  as  regards  the  sepoy  revolt  considered  in  relation 
to  the  future  pecuniary  burdens  on  the  Bengal 
exchequer,  it  ought  to  be  remembered,  that,  if 
(according  to  a  very  loose  report)  the  Company  shall 
finally  be  found  to  have  lost  twenty  millions  of 
rupees,  or  two  millions  sterling,  by  the  looting  of 
many  local  treasuries,  it  will,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
saved,  upon  forfeited  pay,  and  (which  is  much  more 
important)  upon  forfeited  pensions,  in  coming  years, 
a  sum  nearly  corresponding.  Secondly,  this  loot  or 
plunder  must  have  served  the  public  interest  in  a 
variety  of  ways.  It  must  have  cramped  the  other- 
wise free  motions  of  the  rebels ;  must  have  given 
multiplied  temptations  to  desertion ;  must  have  in- 
stilled jealousies  of  each  other,  and  want  of  cordial 
co-operation  in  regard  to  the  current  plans,  and 
oftentimes  murderous  animosities  in  regard  to  past 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA,  317 

transactions — divisions  of  spoil,  or  personal  competi- 
tions. Thus  far,  if  nothing  had  been  concerned  more 
precious  than  money,  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  the 
jmblic  service  (as  distinct  from  the  interest  of  private 
individuals,  whose  property  has  been  destroyed)  will 
be  found  to  have  very  seriously  suffered. 

The  other  head,  which  concerns  the  probable  rela- 
tion of  this  astonishing  revolt  to  the  wisdom  of  our 
late  Indian  administration,  finds  us,  for  the  present, 
enveloped  in  a  mystery  the  most  impenetrable  that 
history,  in  any  of  its  darkest  chapters,  has  offered. 
We  have  a  war  on  foot  with  Southern  China,  or 
rather  with  Canton ;  and  what  may  be  the  Chinese 
object  in  that  war,  is  hitherto  an  impenetrable 
mystery.  But  darker  and  more  unfathomable  is  the 
mystery  which  invests  the  sepoy  insurrection.  Besides 
the  notorious  fact  that  no  grievances,  the  veiy  slight- 
est, have  been  alleged,  it  must  also  be  remembered 
that  we  first  and  solely  made  a  provision  for  the 
invalided  and  for  the  superannuated  soldiei' — a  thing 
unheard  of  throughout  Asia.  And  tliis  golden 
reversion,  the  poor  infatuated  savages  have  wilfully 
renounced !  The  sole  sure  result,  from  this  most 
suicidal  of  revolts,  is — that  unpitied  myriads  of 
sepoys  will  be  bayonetted,  thousands  will  be  hanged, 
and  nearly  all  will  lose  their  pensions. 


318  DE    QUINCEY. 


II. 

PASSING   NOTICES   OF    INBIAN   AFFAIRS. 
{October,  1857.) 

An  English  historian — one  amongst  many — of  our 
British  India,  having  never  happened  to  visit  any 
part  of  that  vast  region,  nor,  indeed,  any  part  of  the 
East,  founded  upon  that  accident  a  claim  to  a  very 
favourable  distinction.  It  was,  Mr.  Mill  argued,  de- 
sirable— it  was  a  splendid  advantage — not  to  have 
seen  India.  This  advantage  he  singly,  amongst  a 
crowd  of  coming  rivals  and  precursors,  might  modestly 
plead ;  and  to  that  extent  he  pretended  to  a  pre- 
cedency amongst  all  his  competitors. 

The  whole  claim,  and  the  arguments  which  sup- 
ported it,  wore  the  aspect  of  a  paradox;  and  a  paradox 
it  certainly  was — but  not,  therefore,  a  falsehood.  A 
paradox,  as  I  have  many  times  explained,  or  pro- 
position contradicting  the  doxa  or  public  opinion,  not 
only  may  be  true,  but  often  has  been  the  leading 
truth  in  capital  struggles  of  opinion.  Not  only  the 
true  doctrine,  but  also,  in  some  branches  of  science, 
the  very  fundamental  doctrine,  that  which  at  this  day 
furnishes  a  fovindation  to  all  the  rest,  originally  came 
forward  as  a  violent  and  revolting  paradox.*     It  is 

*  This  truth,  for  the  sake  of  making  it  more  impressive,  I 
threw  long  ago  into  this  antithetic  form  ;  and  I  will  not  scrnple, 
out  of  any  fear  that  I  may  be  reproached  with  repeating  myself, 
to  place  it  once  again  on  record  : — '  Not  that  only  is  strictly  a 
paradox,  which,  being  false,  is  popularly  regarded  as  true  ; '  but 
that  also,  and  in  a  prodigiously  greater  extent,  which,  being 
true,  is  popularly  regarded  as  false. 


THE   ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  319 

possible  enough,  thei*efore,  that  the  Indian  historio- 
grapher may  have  been  right,  and  not  mex'ely 
speciously  ingenious.  It  is  something  of  a  parallel 
case,  which  we  may  all  have  known  through  the 
candid  admissions  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  that 
the  battle  of  Waterloo  might  by  possibility  have  been 
reported  as  satisfactorily,  on  the  18th  of  June,  1815, 
from  the  centre  of  London  smoke,  as  from  the  centre 
of  that  Belgian  smoke  which  sat  in  heavy  clouds 
throughout  the  day  upon  the  field  of  battle.  Now 
and  then,  it  is  true,  these  Belgian  clouds  drew  up 
in  solemn  draperies,  and  revealed  the  great  tragic 
spectacle  lying  behind  them  for  a  brief  interval. 
But  they  closed  up  again,  and  what  the  spectator 
saw  through  these  fugitive  openings  would  have 
availed  him  little  indeed,  unless  in  so  far  as  it  was 
extended  and  interpreted  by  information  issuing  from 
the  British  staff.  But  this  information  would  have 
been  not  less  material  and  effectual  towards  a  history 
of  the  mighty  battle,  if  furnished  to  a  man  sitting 
in  a  London  drawing-room,  than  if  furnished  to  a 
reporter  watching  as  an  eye-witness  at  Hougoumont. 
This  one  Waterloo  illustration,  if  thoughtfully 
applied,  might  yield  a  justification  for  the  paradoxical 
historian.  Much  more,  therefore,  might  it  yield  a 
justification  for  us  at  home,  who,  sitting  at  ten 
thousand  miles'  distance,  take  upon  us  to  better  the 
Indian  reports  written  on  the  spot,  to  correct  their 
errors  of  haste,  or  to  improve  them  by  showing  the 
inferences  which  they  authorise.  We,  who  wi-ite 
upon  the  awful  scenes  of  India  at  far-distant  stations, 
do  not  so  truly  enjoy  uneq^ixd  advantages,  as  we  enjoy 
varying  and  dissimilar  advantages. 


320  DE    QUINCEY. 

According  to  the  old  proverb,  the  bystander  sees 
more  of  the  game  than  those  who  share  too  closely  in 
its  passions.  And  assuredly,  if  it  were  asked,  what 
it  is  that  we  who  write  upon  Indian  news  aspire  to 
effect,  I  may  reply  frankly,  that,  if  but  by  a  single 
suggestion  any  one  of  us  should  add  something  to  the 
illumination  of  the  great  sepoy  conspiracy — whether 
as  to  its  ultimate  purpose,  or  as  to  its  machinery,  or 
as  to  its  waning  hopes,  or  if  bvit  by  the  merest  trifle 
any  one  of  us  should  take  away  something  from  the 
load  of  anxious  terrors  haunting  the  minds  of  all  who 
have  relations  in  India — that  man  will  have  earned 
his  right  to  occupy  the  public  ear.  For  my  own 
part,  I  will  not  lose  myself  at  present,  when  so  much 
darkness  prevails  on  many  leading  questions,  in  any 
views  too  large  and  theoretic  for  our  present  con- 
dition of  light.  And  that  I  may  not  be  tempted  into 
doing  so,  I  will  proceed  without  regard  to  any 
systematic  order,  taking  up,  exactly  as  chance  or 
preponderant  interest  may  offer  them,  any  urgent 
questions  of  the  hour,  before  the  progress  of  events 
may  antiquate  them,  or  time  may  exhale  their  flavour. 
This  desultory  and  moody  want  of  order  has  its 
attractions  for  many  a  state  of  nervous  distraction. 
Every  tenth  reader  may  happen  to  share  in  the 
distraction,  so  far  as  it  has  an  Iiidian  origin.  The 
same  deadly  anxiety  on  behalf  of  female  relatives, 
separated  from  their  male  protectors  in  the  centre  of 
a  howling  wilderness,  now  dedicated  as  an  altar  to 
the  dark  Hindoo  goddess  of  murder,  may,  in  the 
reader  also,  as  well  as  in  the  writer  on  Indian  news, 
periodically  be  called  on  to  submit  to  the  insurmount- 
able aggravation  of  delay.     In  such  a  case,  what  is 


THE   ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  321 

good  for  one  may  be  good  for  another.  The  same 
inexpressible  terrors,  so  long  as  Nena  Sahibs  and 
other  miscreant  sons  of  hell  are  roaming  through  the 
infinite  darkness,  may  prompt  the  same  fretfulness  of 
spii'it ;  the  same  deadly  irritation  and  restlessness, 
which  cannot  but  sharpen  the  vision  of  fear,  will 
sharpen  also  that  of  watching  hope,  and  will  con- 
tinually read  elements  of  consolation  or  trust  in  that 
which  to  the  uninterested  eye  offers  only  a  barren 
blank. 

EUROPEANS. 

I  am  not  sorry  that  the  first  topic,  which  chance 
brings  uppermost,  is  one  which  overflows  with  the 
wrath  of  inexhaustible  disgust.  What  fiend  of 
foolishness  has  suggested  to  our  absurd  kinsmen  in 
the  East,  through  the  last  sixty  years,  to  generalise 
themselves  under  the  name  of  Europeans  7  As  if 
they  were  ashamed  of  their  British  connections,  and 
precisely  at  that  moment  when  they  are  leaving 
England,  they  begin  to  assume  continental  airs ; 
when  bidding  farewell  to  Europe,  they  begin  to  style 
themselves  Euro2)eans,  as  if  it  were  a  greater  thing 
to  take  up  a  visionary  connection  with  the  Continent, 
than  to  found  a  true  and  indestructible  nobility  upon 
their  relationship  to  the  one  immortal  island  of  this 
planet.  There  is  no  known  spot  of  earth  which  has 
exei'ted  upon  the  rest  of  the  planet  one-thousandth 
part  of  the  influence  which  this  noble  island  has 
exercised  over  the  human  race — exercised  through 
the  noblest  organs  ;  and  yet,  behold  !  these  coxcombs 
of  our  own  blood  have  no  sooner  landed  on  Indian 
soil,  than  they  are  anxious  to  disclaim  the  connection. 

VOL.  I.  X 


322  DE    QUINCEY. 

Such  at  least  is  the  af'partnt  construction  of  their 
usage.  But  mark  the  illogical  consequences  which 
follow.  A  noble  British  regiment  suddenly,  and  for 
no  rational  purpose,  receives  a  new  baptism,  and 
becomes  a  European  regiment.  The  apologist  for 
this  folly  will  say,  that  a  British  regiment  does  not 
necessarily  exclude  Germans,  for  instance.  But  I 
answer  that  it  does.  The  British  Government  have, 
during  this  very  month  of  September,  1857,  declared 
at  Frankfort  (in  answer  to  obstinate  applications 
from  puppies  who  fancy  that  we  cannot  tame  our 
rebels  without  their  assistance),  '  that  the  British 
army,  hy  its  constitution,  does  not  admit  foreigners.^ 
But  suppose  that  accidents  of  aristocratic  patronage 
have  now  and  then  privately  introduced  a  few 
Germans  or  Swedes  into  a  very  few  regiments, 
surely  this  accident,  improbable  already,  was  not 
more  probable  when  the  regiment  was  going  away 
for  twenty  years  (the  old  term  of  expatriation)  to  a 
half-year's  distance  from  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube. 
The  Germanism  of  the  regiment  might  altogether 
evaporate  in  the  East,  but  could  not  possibly  increase. 
Next,  observe  this ;  if  we  must  lose  our  >  nationality, 
and  transmute  ourselves  into  Europeans,  for  the  very 
admirable  reason  that  we  were  going  away  to 
climates  far  remote  from  Germany,  then,  at  least, 
we  ought  not  to  call  our  native  troops  sepoys,  but 
Asiatics.  In  this  way  only  will  there  be  any  logical 
parity  of  antithesis.  Scripturally,  we  are  the  children 
of  Japheth  ;  and,  as  all  Asiatics  are  the  sons  of  Shem, 
then  we  shall  be  able  to  mortify  their  conceit,  by 
calling  to  their  knowledge  our  biblical  prophecy,  that 
the  sons  of  Japheth  shall  sit  down  in  the  tents  of 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  323 

Shem.  But,  thirdly,  even  thus  we  should  find  our- 
selves in  a  dismal  chaos  of  incoheiencies ;  for  what  is 
to  become  of  'Jack'?  Must  our  sailoi-s  be  re-baptised? 
Must  Jack  also  be  a  European  ?  Think  of  Admiral 
Seymour  reporting  to  the  Admiralty  as  a  leader  of 
Europeans !  and  exulting  in  having  circumvented 
Yeh  by  Her  Majesty's  European  crews  !  And  then, 
lastly,  come  the  Marines  :  must  they  also  qualify  for 
children  of  Europe?  Was  there  ever  such  outrageous 
folly  ?  One  is  sure,  in  the  fine  picturesque  words  of 
Chaucer,  that,  *  for  very  filth  and  shame,'  neither 
admiral  nor  the  youngest  middy  would  disgrace 
liimself  by  such  ridiculous  finery  from  the  rag-fair 
of  cosmopolitan  swindling.  The  real  origin  of  so 
savage  an  absurdity  is  this : — Amongst  the  com- 
mercial bodies  of  the  three  presidencies  in  all  the 
leading  cities,  it  became  a  matter  of  difiiculty  often 
to  describe  special  individuals  in  any  way  legally 
operative.  Your  wish  was  to  distinguish  him  from 
the  native  merchant  or  banker ;  but  to  do  this  by 
calling  him  a  British  merchant,  kc,  was  possibly  not 
true,  and  legally,  therefore,  not  safe.  He  might  be 
a  Dane,  a  Eussian,  or  a  Frenchman;  he  was  described, 
therefore,  in  a  more  generalising  way,  as  a  European. 
But  a  case  so  narrow  as  that — a  case  for  pawnbrokers 
and  old  clothesmen — ought  not  to  regulate  the 
usage  of  great  nations.  Grand  and  spirit-stirring 
(especially  in  a  land  far  distant  from  home)  are  the 
recollections  of  towns  or  provinces  connected  with 
men's  nativities.  And  poisonous  to  all  such  ancestral 
inspu-ations  are  the  rascally  devices  of  shroffs  and 
money-changers. 


X  2 


324  DE    QUINCEY. 


That   man — I    suppose   we   are   all   agreed — who 
commanded  in  Meerut  on  Sunday  the  tenth  day  of 
May,    in   the    year    of    Christ    one   thousand    eight 
hundred  and  fifty-seven,  a  day  which  will  furnish  an 
epoch    for  ever  to   the  records  of   civilisation — that 
man  who  could   have  stopped  the  bloody  kennel  of 
hounds,  but  did  not,  racing  in  full  cry  to  the  homes 
of  our  unsuspecting  brothers  and  sisters  in  Delhi — 
it  were  good  for  that  man  if  he  had  not  been  born. 
He  had  notice  such  as  might  have  wakened  the  dead 
early  in  the  afternoon  (2  or  3  o'clock  p.m.,  I  believe), 
and  yet,  at  the  end  of  a  long  summer  day,  torchlight 
found  him  bai'ely  putting  his  foot  into  the  stirrup. 
And  why  into  the  stirrup  at  all  ]     For  what  end,  on 
what  pretence,  should  he  ever  have  played  out  the 
ridiculous  pantomime  and    mockery   of   causing   the 
cavalry    to    mount  ]     Two    missions    there    were    to 
execute  on  that  fatal  night — first,  to  save  our  noble 
brothers  and  sistei-s  at  Delhi  from  a  ruin  that  was 
destined  to  be  total  ;  secondly,  to  inflict  instant  and 
critical    I'etribution    upon    those   who    had    already 
opened    the    carnival    of    outrage,    before   they   left 
Meerut.     Oh,  heaven  and  earth !  heart  so  timid  was 
there  in  all    this  world,  sense  of   wrong  so  callous, 
as  not   to  leap  with    frenzy  of  joy  at  so  sublime  a 
summons  to  wield  the  most  impassioned  functions  of 
Providence — namely,  hell-born  destroyers  to  destroy 
in  the  very  instant  of    their   fancied    triumph,  and 
suffering  innocence  to  x-aise  from  the  dust  in  the  very 
crisis  of  its  last  despairing  prostration.     Reader!   it 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  325 

is  not  exaggeration — many  a  heart  will  bear  witness 
iu  silence  that  it  is  not — if  I  should  say  that  men 
exist,  who  would  gladly  pay  down  thirty  years  of  life 
in  exchange  for  powers  so  heavenly  for  redressing 
earthly  wrongs.  To  the  infamous  torpor  on  that 
occasion,  and  the  neglect  of  the  fleetiog  hour  that 
struck  the  signal  for  delivery  and  vengeance,  are  due 
many  hundreds  of  the  piteous  outrages  that  have 
since  polluted  Bengal.  Do  I  mean  that,  if  the  rebel 
capture  of  Delhi  had  been  prevented,  no  subsequent 
outrages  would  have  followed  1  By  no  means.  Other 
horrors  would  have  been  perpetrated  \  but  that  first 
and  greatest  (always  excepting  the  case  of  Cawnpore) 
would  by  all  likelihood  have  been  intercepted.* 

But  perhaps  his  military  means  were  inadeqviate  to 
the  crisis  1  He  had  duties  to  Meerut,  not  less  than 
duties  of  vengeance  and  of  sudden  deliverance  for 
Delhi.  True  :  he  had  so ;  and  he  had  means  for 
meeting  all  these  duties.  He  had  a  well-mounted 
establishment  of  military  force,  duly  organized  in  all 
its  arms.  Three-and-twenty  hundreds  he  had  of 
British,  suitably  proportioned  as  to  infantry,  cavalry, 
and  artillery — a  little  army  that  would  have  faced 
anything  that  Delhi  could  at  that  time  have  put 
forward.    Grant  that  Delhi  could  have  mustered  5000 

*  Here  observe  there  were  2300  admirable  British  troops,  and 
about  700  men  of  the  mutineers,  who  might  then  have  been 
attacked  at  a  great  advantage,  whilst  dispersed  on  errands  of 
devastation.  Contrast  with  these  proportions  tlie  heroic  ex- 
ertions of  the  noble  Havelock  — fighting  battle  after  battle,  with 
perhaps  never  more  than  1700  or  1800  British  troops,  and 
having  scarcely  a  gun  but  what  he  captured  from  the  enemy. 
And  what  were  the  numbers  of  his  enemy  ?  Five  thousand  in 
the  earlier  actions,  and  10,000  to  12,000  in  the  last. 


326  DE    QUINCEY. 

men  :  these  are  three  propositions  having  no  doubtful 
bearing  upon  such  a  fact : — 

1.  That  cheerfully  would  this  little  British  force 
have  faced  any  Asiatic  force  of  5000  men,  which, 
indeed,  it  can  hardly  be  necessary  to  say,  in  the  face 
of  so  large  and  so  transcendent  an  experience. 

2.  That  the  Delhi  force  could  have  reached  the 
amount  supposed  of  5000  only  after  a  junction  with 
the  Meerut  mutineers ;  which  junction  it  was  the 
main  business  of  the  Meerut  commander  to  intercept. 

3.  That  this  computation  assumes  also  the  whole  of 
the  Delhi  garrison  to  be  well  affected  to  the  muti- 
neers ;  an  assumption  altogether  unwarrantable  on 
the  outside  of  Delhi  during  the  10th  and  11th  of 
May. 

Such  were  (1)  the  motives  of  the  commander  at 
Meerut  towards  a  noble  and  energetic  resolution ; 
such  were  (2)  his  'means* 

Thinking  of  that  vile  lachete,  which  surrendered, 

*  Mr.  D.  B.  Jones  comes  forward  to  defend  the  commandant  of 
Meerut.  How  ?  The  last  sentence  only  of  his  letter  has  any 
sort  of  reference  to  the  public  accusation ;  and  this  sentence 
replies,  but  not  with  any  mode  of  argument  (so\md  or  unsound), 
to  a  charge  perfectly  irrelevant,  if  it  had  ever  existed — namely, 
an  imaginary  charge  against  the  Uttle  army  assembled  on 
May  10  at  Meerut.  The  short  and  summary  answer  is,  that  no 
such  imaginary  charge,  pure  and  absolute  moonshine,  was  ever 
advanced  against  the  gallant  force  at  Meerut. 

Secondly,  if  it  had,  such  a  charge  could  have  no  bearing 
whatever  upon  that  charge,  loudly  preferred  against  the  com- 
mander of  that  district. 

Thirdly,  the  charge  has  been  (I  presume)  settled  as  regards 
its  truth,  and  any  grounds  of  disputation,  this  way  or  that,  by 
the  Governor-General.  The  newspapers  have  told  us,  and  have 
not  been  contradicted,  that  Lord  Canning  has  dismissed  this 
functionary  for  '  siqnncncss.' 


THE   ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  327 

with  a  girl's  tameness,  absolutely  suffered  to  lapse, 
■without  effort,  and  as  if  a  bauble,  this  great  arsenal 
and  magazine  into  the  hands  of  the  revolters,  involun- 
tarily we  have  regarded  it  all  along  as  a  deadly  mis- 
fortune ;  and,  upon  each  periodic  mail,  the  whole 
nation  has  received  the  news  of  its  non-capture  as  a 
capital  disappointment. 

But,  on  steadier  consideration,  apparently  all  this 
must  be  regarded  as  a  very  great  error.  Not  that  it 
could  be  any  error  to  have  wished  for  any  course  of 
events  involving  the  safety  of  our  poor  slaughtered 
compatriots.  That  event  would  have  been  cheap  at 
any  price.  But  that  dismal  catastrophe  having  hap- 
pened, to  intercept  that  bitter  wo  having  been  already 
ripened  into  an  impossibility  by  the  11th  and  12th  of 
May,  seven-and-forty  days  before  our  thoughts  at 
home  began  to  settle  upon  India,  theneeforwards  it 
became  a  very  great  advantage — a  supreme  advantage 
— that  Delhi  should  have  been  occupied  by  the  muti- 
neers.    Briefly,  then,  why  ] 

First  of  all,  because  this  movement  shut  up  within 
one  ring  fence  the  elite,  of  the  rebels  (according  to  some 
calculations,  at  least  three-and-twenty  thousand  of 
well-armed  and  well-disciplined  men),  that  would 
otherwise  have  been  roaming  over  the  whole  face  of 
Bengal  as  marauders  and  murderers.  These  men, 
left  to  follow  their  own  vagrant  instincts,  would,  it  is 
true,  in  some  not  inconsiderable  proportion,  have 
fallen  victims  to  those  fierce  reactions  of  rustic  venge- 
ance which  their  own  atrocities  would  very  soon  have 
provoked.  But  large  concentrated  masses  would  still 
have  survived  in  a  condition  rapidly  disposable  as 
auxiliary    bodies    to   all    those    towns    invested    by 


328  DE   QUINCEY. 

circumstances  witli  a  partisan  interest,  such  as 
Lucknow,  Benares,  Cawnpore,  Agra,  Gwalior,  and 
Allahabad. 

Secondly,  Delhi  it  was  that  opened  the  horrors  of 
retribution ;  mark  what  chastisement  it  was  that 
alighted  from  the  very  first  upon  all  the  scoundrels 
who  sought,  and  fancied  they  could  not  fail  to  find, 
an  asylum  in  Delhi.  It  is  probable  that  hardly  one 
in  twenty  of  the  mutineers  came  to  Delhi  without 
plunder,  and  for  strong  reasons  this  plunder  would 
viniversally  assume  the  shape  of  heavy  metallic  money. 
For  the  public  treasuries  in  almost  every  station  were 
rifled  ;  and  unhappily  for  the  comfort  of  the  robbers 
under  the  Bengal  sun  of  June  and  July,  very  much 
of  the  East  Indian  money  lies  in  silver — namely, 
rupees  ;  of  which,  in  the  last  generation,  eight  were 
sufiicient  to  make  an  English  pound  ;  but  at  present 
ten  are  required  by  the  evil  destiny  of  sepoys.  Every- 
body has  read  an  anecdote  of  the  painter  Cori-eggio, 
that,  upon  finishing  a  picture  for  some  monastery, 
the  malicious  monks  paid  him  for  it  in  copper.  The 
day  of  payment  was  hot,  and  poor  Correggio  was 
overweighted ;  he  lay  down  under  his  copper  afflic- 
tion ;  and  whether  he  died  or  not,  is  more  than  I 
remember.  But  doubtless,  to  the  curious  in  Correg- 
giosity,  Pilkington  will  tell.  For  the  sepoys,  although 
their  affliction  took  the  shape  of  silver,  and  not  of 
copper,  virtually  it  was  not  less,  considering  the  far 
more  blazing  sun.  Mephistopheles  might  have 
arranged  the  whole  affair.  One  could  almost  hear 
him  whispeiing  to  each  separate  sepoy,  as  he  stood 
amongst  the  treasury  burglars,  the  reflection  that 
tho^e  pensions,  which  the  kind  and  munificent  English 


THE   ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  329 

Government  granted  to  their  old  age  or  their  infirm- 
ities, all  over  India,  raising  up  memorial  trophies  of 
public  gratitude  or  enlightened  pity,  never  more 
would  be  heard  of.  All  had  perished,  the  justice  that 
gave,  the  humble  merit  tbat  received,  the  dvitiful 
behaviour  that  hoped ;  and  henceforwards  of  them 
and  of  their  names,  as  after  the  eai-liest  of  rebellions, 
in  the  book  of  life  '  was  no  remembrance.' 

Under  these  miserable  thoughts  the  vast  majority 
of  the  sepoys  robbed  largely,  as  opportunities  con- 
tinually opened  upon  them.  Then,  and  chiefly  through 
their  robberies,  commenced  their  chastisement  in 
good  earnest.  Every  soldier  by  every  comrade  was 
viewed  with  hatred  and  suspicion  \  by  the  common 
labourer  with  the  scrutiny  of  deep  self-interest.  The 
popular  report  of  their  sudden  wealth  travelled 
rapidly  ;  every  road,  village,  house,  whether  ahead  or 
on  their  flanks,  became  a  place  of  distrust  and  anxious 
jealousy ;  and  Delhi  seemed  to  offer  the  only  safe 
asylum.  Thither,  as  to  a  consecrated  sanctuary,  all 
hurried ;  and  their  first  introduction  to  the  duties  of 
the  new  home  they  had  adopted,  would  be  a  harsh 
and  insolent  summons  to  the  chances  of  a  desperate 
sortie  against  men  in  whose  presence  their  very  souls 
sank.  On  reviewing  the  circumstances  which  must 
have  surrounded  this  Delhi  life,  probably  no  nearer 
resemblance  to  a  hell  of  apostate  spirits  has  ever 
existed.  Money,  carried  in  weighty  parcels  of  coin, 
cannot  be  concealed.  Swathed  about  the  person,  it 
disfigures  the  natural  symmetries  of  the  figure.  The 
dilemma,  therefore,  in  which  evei-y  individual  traitor 
stood  was,  that,  if  he  escaped  a  special  notice  from 
every  eye,  this  must  have  been  because  all  his  crimes 


330  DE    QUINCEY. 

had  failed  to  bring  him  even  a  momentary  gain. 
Having  no  money,  he  had  no  swollen  trousers.  For 
ever  he  had  forfeited  the  pension  that  was  the  pledge 
of  comfort  and  respectability  to  his  family  and  his 
own  old  age.  This  he  had  sacrificed,  in  exchange  for 
— nothing  at  all.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  his 
robberies  had  been  very  productive  and  prosperous, 
in  that  proportion  he  became  advertised  to  every  eye, 
indicated  and  betrayed  past  all  concealment  to  every 
ruffian  less  fortunate  as  a  pillager.  Delhi  must  in 
several  points  have  ripened  his  troubles,  and  showed 
them  on  a  magnifying  disk.  To  have  no  confidential 
friend,  or  adviser,  or  depositary  of  a  secret,  is  an 
inevitable  evil  amongst  a  population  constitutionally 
treacherous.  But  now  in  Delhi  this  torment  takes  a 
more  fearful  shape.  Every  fifth  or  sixth  day,  when 
he  is  sternly  ordered  out  upon  his  turn  of  duty,  what 
shall  he  do  with  his  money  ?  He  has  by  possibility 
40  lbs.  weight  of  silver,  each  pound  worth  about  three 
guineas.  In  the  very  improbable  case  of  his  escaping 
the  gallow\s,  since  the  British  Government  will  en- 
deavour to  net  the  whole  monstrous  crew  that  have 
one  and  all  broken  the  sacramentum  militare,  for 
which  scourging  with  rods  and  subsequent  strangula- 
tion is  the  inevitable  penalty,  what  will  remain  to  his 
poor  family  1  His  cottage,  that  once  had  been  his 
pride,  will  now  betray  him,  as  soon  as  ever  movable 
columns  are  formed,  and  horse-patrols  begin  to  inspect 
the  roads.  But,  as  to  his  money,  in  nineteen  cases 
out  of  twenty,  he  will  find  himself  obliged  to  throw  it 
away  in  his  flight,  and  will  then  find  that  through 
three  months  of  intolerable  suffering  he  has  only  been 
actinof  as  steward  for  some  British  soldier. 


I 


THE   ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  331 

The  private  letters  and  the  local  newspapers  from 
many  parts  of  India  having  now  come  in,  it  is  possible 
through  the  fearful  confusion  to  read  some  facts  that 
would  cause  despair,  were  it  not  for  two  remem- 
brances :  first,  what  nation  it  is  that  supports  the 
struggle  ;  secondly,  that  of  the  six  weeks  immediately 
succeeding  to  the  10th  of  September,  no  two  days,  no 
period  of  forty-eight  hours,  ca7i  pass  without  continued 
successions  of  reinforcements  reaching  Calcutta.  It 
should  be  known  that  even  the  worst  sailers  among 
the  transports — namely,  exactly  those  which  were 
despatched  from  England  through  the  course  of  Jkily 
(not  of  Avigust) — are  all  under  contract  to  perform 
the  voyage  in  seventy  days ;  whereas  many  a  calcula- 
tion has  proceeded  on  the  old  rate  of  ninety  days. 
The  small  detachments  of  two  and  three  hundreds, 
despatched  on  every  successive  day  of  July,  are  fvlready 
arriving  at  their  destination  ;  and  the  August  detach- 
ments, generally  much  stronger  (800  or  900),  all 
sailed  in  powerful  steamers.  Lord  Elgin  arrived  at 
Calcutta  in  time  to  be  reported  by  this  mail,  with 
marines  (300)  and  others  (300),  most  seasonably  to 
meet  the  dangers  and  uproars  of  the  great  Mahometan 
festival.     The  bad  tidings  are  chiefly  these  : — 

1.  The  failure  of  a  night-attack  upon  the  Dinapore 
mutineers  by  detachments  from  two  of  our  British 
regiments,  with  a  loss  of  '  200  killed ' ;  in  which,  how- 
ever, there  must  be  a  mistake  ;  for  the  total  number 
of  our  attacking  party  was  only  300.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  may  have  been  some  call  for  a  consciously 
desperate  effort ;  and  the  enemy,  having  two  regi- 
ments, would  muster,  probably,  very  nearly  2000 
men ;  for  the  sepoy  regiments  are  always  strong  in 


332  DB    QUINCEY. 

numbers,   and   these   particular   regiments   had   not 
suffered. 

2.  Much  more  ominous  than  these  reports,  is  an 
estimate  of  our  main  force  before  Delhi  at  less  than 
2000  men.  This,  unhappily,  is  not  intrinsically 
improbable.  The  force  was,  by  many  persons,  never 
reckoned  at  more  than  6000  or  7000  men ;  and  this, 
when  reduced  by  three-and-twenty  conflicts  (perhaps 
more),  in  which  the  enemy  had  the  advantage  of 
artillery  more  powerful  than  ours,  and  (what  is  worse) 
of  trained  artillerymen  more  numerous,  might  too 
naturally  come  down  to  the  small  number  stated. 

3.  The  doubtful  condition  of  Lucknow,  Benares, 
and  Agi-a  comes  in  the  rear  of  all  this  to  strike  a 
frost  into  the  heart,  or  would  do  so,  again  I  say,  if 
any  other  nation  were  concerned, 

4.  Worse  still,  because  reluctantly  unfolding  facts 
that  had  previously  been  known  and  kept  back,  is 
the  state  of  Bombay.  "When  retreats  on  board  the 
shipping  are  contemplated,  or  at  least  talked  of,  the 
mere  insulated  case  of  Kolapore  becomes  insignificant. 

5.  I  read  a  depressing  record  in  the  very  quarter 
whence  all  our  hopes  arise.  In  summing  up  the 
particular  transports  throughout  July  whose  destina- 
tion was  Calcutta,  I  find  that  the  total  of  troops 
ordered  to  that  port  in  the  thirty-one  days  of  July 
was  just  6500,  and  no  more.  Every  place  was  rapidly 
becoming  of  secondary  importance  in  comparison  of 
the  area  stretching  with  a  radius  of  150  miles  in  every 
direction  from  the  centre  of  Allahabad.  And  the 
one  capital  danger  is  too  clearly  this — that,  being 
unable  to  throw  in  overwhelming  succours,  those 
inadequate  succours,   matched  against  the  countless 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  333 

resources  of  Hindoo  vagrant  ruffianism,  may,  at  the 
utmost,  enable  us  to  keep  a  lingering  hold,  whilst 
endless  successions  of  incomparably  gallant  men  fall 
before  our  own  rifles,  our  own  guns,  and  that  disci- 
pline of  a  cowardly  race  which  we  ourselves  have 
taught.  We  are  true  to  ourselves,  and  ever  shall 
be  so :  that  is  a  rock  to  build  upon.  Yet,  if  it 
should  appear  by  January  next  that  no  deep  impres- 
sion has  then  been  made  upon  revolting  India,  it  will 
probably  appear  the  best  course  to  send  no  more 
rivulets  of  aid  ;  but  to  combine  measures  energetically 
with  eveiy  colony  or  outpost  of  the  empire ;  to  call 
up  even  the  marines  and  such  sections  of  our  naval 
forces  as  have  often  co-operated  with  the  land  forces 
(in  the  Chinese  war  especially) ;  and  to  do  all  this 
with  a  perfect  disregard  of  money.  Lord  Palmerston 
explained  very  sufficiently  why  it  is  that  any  power- 
ful squadrons  of  ships,  which  would  else  have  rendered 
such  overwhelming  succour  against  the  towns  along 
the  line  of  the  Ganges  and  Jumna,  were  unhappily 
disqualified  for  action,  by  the  shallows  and  sand-banks 
on  those  great  rivers.  But  this  apology  does  not 
stand  good  as  regards  flotillas  of  gunboats  or  rafts 
with  a  very  light  draught  of  water ;  still  less  as  regards 
the  seamen  aud  marines. 

I  conclude  with  these  notices — too  painfully  entitled 
to  some  attention.     Would  to  heaven  they  were  not  I 

1,  Calcutta  itself  is  not  by  any  means  in  a  state  of 
security,  either  in  the  English  sense  of  that  word 
(namely,  freedom  from  danger),  or  in  its  old  Latin 
sense  of  freedom  from  the  anxieties  of  danger.  All 
depends  upon  the  prosperity  of  our  affairs  at  Delhi, 
Lucknow,    Agra,    Cawnpore,    and    Allahabad.      The 


334  DE    QUINCEY. 

possibility  of  a  fanatical  explosion,  such  as  that  which 
occurred  recently  at  Patna,  shows  the  inefficiency  of 
our  precautions  and  pretended  police.  I  believe  that 
the  native  associations  formed  in  Calcutta  will  be  of 
little  use.  Either  the  members  will  be  sleeping  at 
the  moment  of  outbreak,  or  will  be  sepai-ated  from 
their  arms.  We  are  noble  in  our  carelessness ;  our 
enemy  is  base,  but  his  baseness,  always  in  alliance 
with  cunning  and  vigilance,  tells  cruelly  against  us. 

2.  It  may  be  feared  that  the  Governor-General  has 
in  the  following  point  lamentably  neglected  a  great 
duty  of  his  place.  It  must  have  been  remarked 
with  astonishment,  as  a  matter  almost  inexplicable, 
how  it  has  arisen  that  so  many  gallant  men,  at  the 
head  of  every  regiment,  should  have  suffered  them- 
selves to  be  slaughtered  like  sheep  in  a  butcher's 
shambles.  Surely  five-and-twenty  or  thirty  men,  in 
youthful  vigour,  many  of  them  capital  shots,  could 
easily  have  shot  down  150  of  the  cowardly  sepoys. 
So  much  work  they  could  have  finished  with  their 
revolvers.  More  than  one  amongst  the  ladies,  in  this 
hideous  struggle,  have  shot  down  their  two  brace  of 
black  scoundrels  apiece.  But  the  officers,  having  the 
advantage  of  swords,  would  have  accounted  for  a  few 
score  more.  Why,  then,  have  they  not  done  this  1 — 
an  act  of  energy  so  natural  to  our  countrymen  when 
thus  roused  to  unforgiving  vengeance.  Simply  be- 
cause they  have  held  themselves  most  nobly,  and  in 
defiance  of  their  own  individual  interest,  to  be  under 
engagements  of  fidelity  to  the  Company,  and  obliga- 
tions of  forbearance  to  the  dogs  whom  they  commanded, 
up  to  the  last  moment  of  possible  doubt.  Now,  from 
these  engagements  of  honour  the  Governor-General 


\ 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  335 

should,  by  one  universal  act  (applicable  to  the  three 
Presidencies)  have  absolved  them.  For  it  cannot  be 
alleged  now  for  an  instant,  that  perhaps  the  regiments 
might  mean  to  continue  faithful.  If  they  do  mean 
this,  no  harm  will  come  to  any  party  from  the  official 
dispensing  order ;  the  sepoys  could  suffer  by  it  only 
in  the  case  of  treachery.  And,  in  the  meantime,  there 
has  emerged  amongst  them  a  new  policy  of  treason, 
which  requires  of  us  to  assume,  in  mere  self-defence, 
that  all  sepoys  are  meditating  treason.  It  is  this  : 
they  now  reserve  their  linal  treason  until  the  critical 
moment  of  action  in  the  very  crisis  of  battle.  Ordered 
to  charge  the  revolters,  they  discharge  their  carbines 
over  their  heads  ;  or,  if  infantry,  they  blaze  away 
with  blank  cartridge.  This  policy  has  been  played  oU 
already  eight  or  nine  times ;  and  by  one  time,  as  it 
happens,  too  many ;  for  it  was  tried  upon  the  stern 
Havelock,  who  took  away  both  horses  and  carbines 
from  the  offenders.  Too  late  it  is  now  for  Bengal  to 
baffle  this  sharper's  trick.  But  Bombay  and  Madras, 
should  their  turn  come  after  all,  might  profit  by  the 
experience. 

3.  For  years  it  has  been  our  nursery  bngbear,  to 
apprehend  a  Russian  invasion  on  the  Indus.  This,  by 
testimony  from  every  quarter  (the  last  being  that  of 
Sir  Roderick  Murchison,  who  had  travelled  over  most 
of  the  ground),  is  an  infinitely  impossible  chimera ; 
or  at  least  until  the  Russians  have  colonized  Khiva 
and  Bokhara.  Meantime,  to  those  who  have  suffered 
anxiety  from  such  an  anticipation,  let  me  suggest  oue 
consolation  at  least  amongst  the  many  horrors  of  the 
present  scenes  in  Bengal — namely,  that  this  perfidy 
of    our  troops   was  not   displayed  first   in   the   very 


336  DE    QUINCEY. 

agony  of  conflict  with  Russia,  or  some  more  probable 
invader. 

4.  A  dismal  suggestion  arises  from  the  present 
condition  of  Bengal,  which  possibly  it  is  too  late  now 
to  regard  as  a  warning.  Ravaged  by  bands  of 
marauders,  no  village  safe  from  incursion,  the  usual 
culture  of  the  soil  must  have  been  dangerously  inter- 
rupted. Next,  therefore,  comes  Famine  (and  note 
that  the  famines  of  India  have  been  always  excessive, 
from  want  of  adequate  carriage),  and  in  the  train  of 
famine,  inaudibly  but  svirely,  comes  cholera  ;  and  then, 
perhaps,  the  guiltiest  of  races  will  pay  down  an 
expiation  at  which  centuries  will  tremble.  For  in 
the  grave  of  famishing  nations  treason  languishes  ; 
the  murderer  has  no  escape ;  and  the  infant  with  its 
mother  sleeps  at  last  in  peace. 

P.S. — The  following  memoranda,  more  or  less  con- 
nected with  points  noticed  in  the  preceding  paper, 
but  received  later,  seem  to  merit  attention  : — 

1.  As  to  the  strength  of  our  army  before  Delhi,  it 
seems,  from  better  accounts,  to  be  hardly  less  than 
5000  men,  of  which  one-half  are  British  infantry ; 
and  the  besieged  seem,  by  the  closest  inquiries,  to 
reach  at  the  least  22,000  men. 

2.  Colonel  Edwardes,  so  well  known  in  connection 
with  Moultan,  has  published  an  important  fact — 
namely,  that  the  sepoys  did  rely,  in  a  very  great 
degree,  upon  the  whole  country  rising,  and  that  their 
disappointment  and  despair  are  consequently  propor- 
tionable. 

3.  A  great  question  arises — How  it  was  possible 
for    the  sepoys — unquestionably  not  harbouring  the 


THE    ENGLISH    IX    INDIA.  di./ 

smallest  ill-will  to  the  British — suddenly  and  almost 
universally  to  assail  them  with  atrocities  arguing 
the  greatest.  Even  their  own  countrymen,  with  all 
their  childish  credulity,  would  not  be  made  to  believe 
that  they  really  hated  people  with  whom  they  had 
never  had  any  but  the  kindest  and  most  indulgent 
intercourse.  I  should  imagine  that  the  solution  must 
de  sought  in  two  facts — first,  in  the  deadly  ennui  and 
tcedium  of  sepoy  life,  which  disposes  them  to  catch 
maniacally  at  any  opening  for  furious  excitement ; 
but,  secondly,  in  the  wish  to  forward  the  ends  of  the 
conspiracy  under  Mahometan  misleading.  Hence,  in 
particular,  the  cruelties  practised  on  women  and 
children  :  for  they  argued  that,  though  the  British 
men  would  face  anything  in  their  own  persons  before 
they  would  relax  their  hold  on  India,  they  would  yet 
be  appalled  by  the  miseries  of  their  female  partners 
and  children. 

4.  It  is  most  unfair,  undoubtedly,  to  attack  any 
man  in  our  present  imperfect  state  of  information. 
But  some  neglects  are  unsusceptible  of  after  excuse. 
One  I  have  noticed,  which  cannot  be  denied  or  var- 
nished, in  Lord  Canning.  Another  is  this  : — Had  he 
offered  10,000  rupees  (£1000  sterling)  for  the  head 
of  Nena  Sahib,  he  would  have  got  it  in  ten  days, 
besides  inflicting  misery  on  the  hell-kite. 


VOL.  I. 


338  DE    Q'JINCEY. 


III. 


SUGGESTIONS    UPON    THE    SECRET    OF    THE    MUTINY. 

{Jamiary,  1858.) 

The  first  question  ai-ises  upon  the  true  originators, 
proximate  and  immediate,  of  the  mutiny — who  were 
they  1  This  question  ploughs  deeper  than  any  which 
moves  under  an  impulse  of  mere  historic  curiosity ; 
and  it  is  piuctically  the  main  question.  Knowing 
the  true,  instant,  operative  cause,  already  we  know 
something  of  the  remedy  ; — having  sure  information 
as  to  the  ringleaders,  we  are  enabled  at  once  to  read 
their  motives  in  the  past,  to  anticipate  their  policy  in 
the  future  ; — having  the  persons  indicated,  those  who 
fiist  incited  or  encouraged  the  felonious  agents,  we 
can  shorten  the  course  of  public  vengeance ;  and  in 
so  vast  a  field  of  action  can  give  a  true  direction  from 
the  first  to  the  pursuit  lieaded  })y  our  Indian  police. 
For  that  should  never  be  liid  out  of  sight — that 
a.gainst  rebels  whose  least  offence  is  their  rebellion, 
against  men  who  have  massacred  by  torture  women 
and  childi-en,  the  service  of  extermination  beloni^s  of 
right  to  executioners  •  armed  with  whips  and  rods, 
with  the  lassos  of  South  America  for  noosing  them, 
and,  being  noosed,  with  halters  to  hang  them.*     It 

*  '  To  hang  them : ' — ^But  with  a  constant  notification  that, 
after  hanging,  the  criminals  would  be  decapitated  :  otherwise 
the  threat  loses  its  sting.  It  seems  to  be  a  superstition  uni- 
versal amongst  Southern  Asiatics,  unless  possibly  amongst  the 
Malay  race,  that  to  suffer  any  dismemberment  of  the  body 
operates  disastrously  upon  the  fate  in  the  unseen  world.     And 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  339 

sliould  be  made  known  by  proclamation  to  the  sepoys, 
that  de  jure,  in  strict  interpretation  of  the  principle 
concerned,  they  are  hunted  by  the  hangman ;  and 
that  the  British  army,  whilst  obliged  by  the  vast 
scale  of  the  outrages  to  join  in  this  hangman's  chase, 
feel  themselves  dishonoured,  and  called  to  a  work 
which  properly  is  the  inheritance  of  the  gallows ;  and 
yet,  again,  become  reconciled  to  the  work,  as  the 
purgation  of  an  earth  polluted  by  the  blood  of  the 
innocent. 

Who  then,  again  I  ask — who  are  those  that,  after 
seven  months'  watching  of  the  revolt,  appeared,  by 
any  plausible  construction  of  events,  to  have  been 
the  primal  movers  in  this  hideous  convulsion  ?  Indi- 
vidvial  opinions  on  this  question,  and  such  as  could 
plead  a  weight  of  authority  in  regard  to  experience,  to 
local  advantages  for  conjecture,  and  to  official  oppor- 
tunities for  overlooking  intercepted  letters,  there  have 
been  many  ;  and  at  first  (say  from  May  10  to  the  end 
of  June),  in  the  absence  of  any  strong  counter-argu- 
ments, some  of  these  were  entitled  to  the  full  benefit 
of  their  jmsonal  weight  (such  weight,  I  mean,  as 
could  be  drawn  from  the  position  or  from  the  known 


hence,  no  doubt,  it  has  arisen  that  the  gallows  is  not  viewed  in 
the  light  of  a  degrading  punishment.  Immunity  from  mutila- 
tion compensates  any  ignominy  which  might  else  attend  it. 
Accordingly,  we  see  in  China  that  the  innumerable  victims  of 
the  present  rebellion,  captured  in  the  vast  pi'ovince  of  Quantung_ 
by  the  cruel  Yeh,  were  all  beheaded  by  the  sword  in  the  blood- 
reeking  privacies  of  Canton.  And  two  centuries  back,  when  the 
native  dynasty  was  overthrown  by  the  last  Tartar  invasion,  the 
reigning  emperor  (having  unlimited  freedom  of  choice)  ended 
his  career  by  a  halter  :  retiring  to  his  orchard,  he  hanged  both 
himself  and  his  daughter. 

Y  2 


340  DE    QUINCEV. 

character  of  him  who  announced  the  opinion).  But 
now— namely,  on  the  15th  of  December  (or,  looking 
to  India,  say  the  10th  of  November) — we  are  entitled 
to  something  weightier.  And  what  is  there  which 
generally  would  be  held  weightier?  First,  there  are 
the  confessions  of  dying  criminals ; — I  mean,  that, 
logically,  we  mvist  reserve  such  a  head,  as  likely  to 
offer  itself  sooner  or  later.  Tempers  vary  as  to  ob- 
duracy, and  circumstances  vary.  All  men  will  not 
share  in  the  obstinacy  of  partisan  pride ;  or  not,  by 
many  degrees,  equally.  And  again,  some  amongst 
the  many  thousands  who  leave  families  will  have 
favours  to  ask.  They  all  know  secretly  the  perfect 
trustworthiness  of  the  British  Government.  And 
when  matters  have  come  to  a  case  of  choice  between 
a  wife  and  children,  in  the  one  scale,  and  a  fraternity 
consciously  criminal,  in  the  other,  it  may  be  judged 
which  is  likely  to  prevail.  What  through  the  coercion 
of  mere  circumstances — what  thi'ough  the  entreaties 
of  wife  and  children,  co-operating  with  such  circum- 
stances— or  sometimes  through  weakness  of  nature, 
or  through  relenting  of  compunction — it  is  not  to  be 
doubted  that,  as  the  cohesion  of  party  begins  rapidly 
to  relax  under  approaching  ruin,  there  will  be  con- 
fessions in  abundance.  For  as  yet,  under  the  timid 
policy  of  the  sepoys — hardly  ever  venturing  out  of 
cover,  either  skulking  amongst  bushy  woodlands,  or 
sneaking  into  house-shelter,  or  slinking  back  within 
the  range  of  their  great  guns — it  has  naturally  hap- 
pened that  our  prisoners  have  been  exceedingly  few. 
But  the  decisive  battle  before  Lucknow  will  tell  us 
another  story.  There  will  at  last  be  cavalry  to  reap 
the    harvest   when   oui-  soldiery  have   won  it.     The 


THE   ENGLISH    IN   INDIA.  341 

prisoners  will  begin  to  accumulate  by  thousands ; 
executions  will  proceed  through  week  after  week  ;  and 
a  lax'ge  variety  of  cases  will  yield  us  a  commensurate 
crop  of  confessions.  These,  when  they  come,  will  tell 
us,  no  doubt,  most  of  what  the  sepoys  can  be  sup- 
posed to  know.  But,  meantime,  how  much  is  that  ? 
Too  probably,  except  in  the  case  of  here  and  there 
some  specially  intelligent  or  specially  influential  sepoy 
officer,  indispensable  as  a  go-between  to  the  non-mili- 
tary conspirators  moving  in  darkness  behind  the 
rebel  army,  nothing  at  all  was  communicated  to  the 
bulk  of  the  privates,  beyond  the  mere  detail  of  move- 
ments required  by  the  varying  circumstantialities  of 
each  particular  case.  But  of  the  ultimate  purpose, 
of  the  main  strategic  policy,  or  of  the  transcendent 
interests  over-riding  the  narrow  counsels  that  fell 
under  the  knowledge  of  the  illiterate  soldier,  since  no 
part  was  requisite  to  the  fulfilment  of  each  man's 
sepai'ate  duty,  no  part  would  be  communicated.  It 
is  barely  possible  that  so  much  light  as  may  be  won 
from  confessions,  combined  with  so  much  further 
light  as  may  be  supposed  to  lurk  amongst  the  mass 
of  unexamined  papers  left  behind  them  by  the  rebels 
at  Delhi,  might  tell  us  something  important.  But 
any  result  to  be  expected  from  the  Delhi  papers  is  a 
doubtful  contingency.  It  is  uncertain  whether  they 
will  ever  be  brought  under  the  review  of  zeal  united 
to  sagacity  sufficient  for  sustaining  a  search  purely 
disinterested.  Promising  no  great  triumph  for  any 
literary  purpose,  proving  as  little,  perhaps,  one  way 
or  other,  as  the  mathematician  in  the  old  story  com- 
plained that  the  ^Eneid-  proved — these  papers,  unless 
worked  by  an  enamoured  bookworm  (or  paperworm), 


342  .  DE    QUINCEY. 

will  probably  be  confiscated  to  some  domestic  purpos?, 
of  singeing  chickens  or  lighting  tires. 

But,  in  any  case,  whether  speaking  by  confessions 
or  by  the  varied  memoranda  (orders  to  subaltern 
officers,  resolutions  adopted  by  meetings,  records  of 
military  councils,  petitions,  or  suggestions  on  the 
public  service,  addressed  to  the  king,  &c.),  abandoned 
in  the  palace  at  Delhi,  the  soldier  can  tell  no  more 
than  he  knew,  which,  under  any  theory  of  the  case, 
must  have  been  very  little.  Better,  therefore,  than 
all  expectations  fixed  on  the  vile  soldieiy,  whom,  in 
every  sense,  and  in  all  directions,  I  believe  to  have 
been  brutally  ignorant,  and  through  their  ignorance 
mainly  to  have  been  used  as  blind  servile  instruments 
— better  and  easier  it  would  be  to  examine  narrowly 
whether,  in  the  whole  coiu'se  and  evolution  of  this 
stvipendous  tragedy,  there  may  not  be  found  some 
characterising  feature  or  distinguishing  incident, 
that  may  secretly  report  the  agency,  and  betray,  by 
the  style  and  character  of  the  workmanship,  loho 
might  be  the  particular  class  of  workmen  standing  at 
the  centre  of  this  unparalleled  conspiracy.  I  think 
that  we  stand  in  this  dilemma  :  either,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  the  miserable  sepoys,  who  were  the  sole 
acting  managers,  were  also  the  sole  contrivers  of  the 
plot — in  which  case  we  can  look  for  further  light 
only  to  the  judicial  confessions  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  an  order  of  agents  far  higher  in  rank  than  any 
subaltern  members  of  our  army,  and  who  were  en- 
abled by  this  rank  and  corresponding  wealth  to  use 
these  soldiers  as  their  dupes  and  tools,  stood  in  the 
background,  holding  the  springs  of  the  machinery  in 
their  hands,  with  a  view  to  purposes  transcending  by 


THE    EXGLI3II    IX    INDIA.  343 

fai-  any  that  couM  ever  suggest  themselves  to  persons 
of  obscure  station,  havhig  no  prospect  of  benefiting 
by  their  own  fullest  success.  In  this  case,  we  shall 
learn  nothing  from  the  confessions  of  those  who  must, 
vipon  a  principle  of  mere  self-preservation,  have  been 
excluded  from  all  real  knowledge  of  the  dreadful 
scheme  to  which  they  were  made  parties,  simply  as 
perpetrators  of  its  murders  and  outrages.  Here  it  is 
equally  vain  to  look  for  revelations  from  the  mercen- 
ary workers,  who  know  nothing,  or  from  the  elevated 
leaders,  who  know  all,  but  have  an  interest  of  life 
anl  death  in  dissembling  their  knowledge.  Revela- 
tions  of  any  value  from  those  who  cannot,  and  from 
those  who  will  not,  reveal  the  ambitious  schemes 
communicated  to  a  very  few,  are  alike  hopeless.  In 
default  of  these,  let  us  examine  if  any  one  incident, 
or  class  of  incidents,  in  the  course  of  these  horrors, 
may  not  have  made  a  self-i'evelation — a  silent  but 
significant  revelation,  pointing  the  attention  of  men 
to  the  true  authors,  and  simultaneously  to  the  final 
purposes,  of  this  mysterious  conspiracy. 

Now,  it  has  not  escaped  the  notice  of  many  people 
that  two  most  extraordinary  classes  of  outrages, 
perpetrated  or  attempted,  have  marked  a  very  largo 
majority  of  the  mutinovTS  explosions ;  outrages  that 
were  in  the  last  degree  unnatural,  as  out  of  harmony 
with  t'le  whole  temper  and  spirit  of  intercourse 
generally  prevailing  between  the  sepoys  and  their 
British  officers.  The  case  is  peculiarly  striking.  Ko 
reproach  on  the  character  of  their  manners  was  ever 
alleged  against  their  British  ofiicers  by  any  section 
or  subdivision  of  the  sepoy  soldiery.  Indeed,  the 
reproach,  where  any  existed,  ran  in  the  very  opposite 


344  DE   QUINCEY. 

channel.  Too  great  indulgence  to  the  sepoy,  a  spirit 
of  concession  too  facile  to  their  very  whims  and 
caprices,  and  generally  too  relaxed  a  state  of  disci- 
pline— these  features  it  was  of  the  British  bearing 
towards  the  native  soldiery  which  too  often,  and 
reasonably,  provoked  severe  censures  from  the  ob- 
serving. The  very  case  *  which  I  adduced  some 
months  back,  where  an  intelligent  British  oiEcer,  in 
the  course  of  his  evidence  before  some  court-martial, 
mentioned,  in  illustration  of  the  decaying  discipline, 
that  for  some  considerable  space  of  time  he  had 
noticed  a  growing  disrespect  on  the  part  of  the 
privates ;  in  particular,  that,  on  coming  into  the  can- 
tonments of  his  own  regiment,  the  men  had  ceased  to 
rise  from  their  seats,  and  took  no  notice  of  his  pre- 
sence— this  one  anecdote  sufficiently  exemplified  the 
quality  of  the  errors  prevailing  in  the  deportment  of 
our  countrymen  to  their  native  soldiery  ;  and  that  it 
would  be  ludicrous  to  charge  them  with  any  harshness 
or  severity  of  manner.  Such  being  too  notoriously 
the  case,  whence  could  possibly  arise  the  bloody  car- 
nage by  which,  in  almost  every  case,  the  sepoys 
inaugurated,  or  tried  to  inaugui^ate,  their  emancipa- 
tion from  British  rule  1  Our  continental  neighbours 
at  first  grossly  misinterpreted  the  case ;  and  more 
excusably  than  in  many  other  misinterpi-etations. 
Certainly  it  was  unavoidable  at  first  to  read,  in  this 
frenzy  of  bloodshed,  the  vindictive  retaliations  of  men 

*  This  case  was  entirely  misapprehended  by  a  journalist  who 
happened  to  extract  the  passage.  He  understood  me  to  mean 
that  this  particular  mode  of  disrespect  to  their  British  officers 
had  operated  as  a  cause  of  evil ;  whereas  I  alleged  it  simply  as 
an  evidence  and  exponent  of  evil  habits  criminally  tolerated 
amongst  the  veiy  lowest  orders  of  our  mercenary  troops. 

I 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA,  345 

that  had  suffered  horrible  and  ineffable  indignities  at 
our  hands.  It  was  apparently  the  old  case  of  African 
slaves  in  some  West  Indian  colony — St.  Domingo,  for 
instance — breaking  loose  from  the  yoke,  and  murder- 
ing (often  with  cruel  torments)  the  whole  households 
of  their  oppyessors.  But  a  month  dissipated  these 
groundless  commentaries.  The  most  prejudiced 
Frenchman  could  not  fail  to  observe  that  no  sepoy 
regiment  ever  alluded  to  any  rigour  of  treatment, 
or  any  haughtiness  of  demeanour.  His  complaints 
centred  in  the  one  sole  subject  of  religion ;  even  as 
to  which  he  did  not  generally  pretend  to  any  cer- 
tain knowledge,  but  simply  to  a  very  strong  belief  or 
persuasion  that  we  secretly  meditated,  not  that  we 
openly  avowed  or  deliberately  pursued,  a  purpose  of 
coercing  him  into  Christianity.  This,  were  it  even 
true,  though  a  false  and  most  erroneous  policy,  could 
not  be  taxed  with  ill-will.  A  man's  own  religion,  if 
it  is  sincerely  such,  is  that  which  he  profoundly 
believes  to  be  the  truth.  Now,  in  seeking  to  inocu- 
late another  with  that  which  sincerely  he  believes  to 
be  eminently  the  truth,  though  proceeding  by  false 
methods,  a  man  acts  in  a  spirit  of  benignity.  So  that, 
on  all  hands,  the  hellish  fury  of  the  sepoy  was  felt  to 
be  unnatui-al,  artificially  assumed,  and,  by  a  reason- 
able inference,  was  held  to  be  a  mask  for  something 
else  that  he  wished  to  conceal.  But  what  1  What 
was  that  something  else  which  he  wished  to  conceal  ? 
The  sepoy  simulated,  in  order  that  he  might  dissimu- 
late. He  pretended  a  wrong  sustained,  that  he  might 
call  away  attention  from  a  wrong  which  he  designed. 
At  this  point  I  (and  no  doubt  in  company  with 
multitudes  beside  that  had  watched  the  case)  became 


346  BE    QUINCEY. 

sensible  of  an  nlien  presence  secretly  intruding  into 
this  pretended  quarrel  of  the  native  soldier.  It  was 
no  sepoy  that  was  moving  at  the  centre  of  this  feud  : 
the  objects  towards  which  it  ultimately  tended  were 
not  such  as  could  by  possibility  interest  the  poor, 
miserable,  idolatrous  native.  What  was  Ae  to  gain 
by  the  overthrow  of  the  British  Government  ?  The 
poor  simpleton,  who  ha^l  been  decoyed  into  this 
monstrous  field  of  strife,  opened  the  game  by  re- 
nouncing all  the  vast  advantages  which  he  and  his 
children  to  the  hundredth  generation  might  diaw 
from  the  system  of  the  Company,  and  entered  upon  a 
career  towards  distant  objects  that  for  him  have 
absolutely  no  meaning  or  intelligible  existence.  At 
this  point  it  was  that  two  enigmas,  previously  insol- 
uble, suddenly  received  the  fullest  explanation  :— 

1.  What  was  the  meaning  of  that  hellish  fury 
suddenly  developed  towards  officers  with  whom  pre- 
viously the  sepoy  had  lived  on  terms  of  reciprocal 
amity  1 

2.  What  cause  had  led  to  that  incompi-ehensible 
enmity  manifested,  in  the  process  of  these  ferocious 
scenes,  towards  the  wives  and  children  of  the  officers  ? 
Surely,  if  his  wish  were  to  eliminate  their  families 
from  the  Indian  territory,  that  purpose  was  suf- 
ficiently secured  by  the  massacre  of  him  whose 
exertions  obtained  a  livelihood  for  the  rest  of  the 
household. 

It  was  tolerably  certain  that  the  widows  and  their 
children  would  not  remain  much  longer  in  the  Imlian 
territory,  when  it  no  longer  offered  them  an  asylum 
or  a  livelihood.  Now,  since  personally,  and  viewed 
apart  from  their  husbands,  these  ladies  could  have  no 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  347 

intei'est  foi'  the  nuirJering  sepoys,  it  became  moi'e 
iind  more  unintelligible  on  what  piinciple,  steady 
motive,  or  fugitive  impulse,  these  incirnate  demons 
could  persist  in  cherishing  any  feeding  whatever  to 
those  poor,  ruined  women,  who,  when  their  anchorage 
should  be  cut  away  by  the  murder  of  tlieir  husbands, 
would  become  mei^e  waifs  and  derelicts  stranded  upon 
the  Indian  shores. 

These  had  seemed  at  first  two  separate  mysteries 
not  less  hard  to  decipher  than  the  primal  mystery  of 
the  mutiny  itself.  But  now  all  became  clenr;  what- 
soever might  be  the  composition,  or  character,  or 
final  objects  of  thnt  tyranny  which  had  decoyed  the 
sepoys  under  its  yoke,  one  thing  was  certain — namely, 
that  the  childishness  and  levity  of  the  Hindoo  sepoy 
made  it  difiicult  in  excess  to  gain  any  lasting  hold 
over  his  mind,  or  consequently  to  count  upon  his 
lasting  services.  But  to  this  general  difficulty  there 
had  now  supervened  one  signal  aggravation,  in  a 
shape  hateful  to  those  who  encountered  it^namely, 
the  attractions  of  the  British  service,  which  service 
would  be  no  sooner  abjured  than  it  would  be  passion- 
ately regretted.  Here  lay  the  rock  which  threatened 
the  free  movement  of  the  insurrection.  It  was 
evidently  determined  by  those  who  meant  to  appropri- 
ate the  services  of  the  sepoys,  that  they  should  have 
no  retreat,  no  opening  for  recovering  a  false  step,  in 
the  well-known  mercy  of  the  British  Government. 
For  them  it  was  resolved  that  there  should  be  no 
locus  penitentice  left  open.  In  order  to  close  for  ever 
that  avenue  to  all  hope  of  forgiveness,  the  misleaders 
of  the  soldiery  urged  them  into  those  atrocities  which 
every  nation  upon  earth  has   heard  of  with  horror. 


348  DE   QUINCEY. 

The  mere  fact  of  these  atrocities  indicates  at  once  the 
overruling  influence  of  such  men  as  Nena  Sahib, 
determined  to  place  a  bar  of  everlasting  separation 
between  the  native  army  and  that  government  which 
might  else  have  reclaimed  the  erring  men,  had  their 
offences  lain  within  the  reach  of  lawful  forgiveness. 
The  conspirators  having  thus  divorced  the  ruling 
power,  as  they  idly  flattered  themselves,  fi-om  all 
martial  resoui'ces,  doubtless  assumed  the  work  of 
revolution  already  finished  by  midsummei'-day  of  this 
present  yeai\  And  this  account  of  the  course  through 
whicli  that  attempted  revolution  travelled — according 
to  which,  not  the  sepoys,  who  could  have  had  no 
ambition  such  as  is  implied  in  that  attempt,  but  In- 
dian princes  and  rajahs,  standing  in  the  background, 
were  the  true  originators  of  the  movement — finds 
an  indirect  justification  of  its  own  accuracy  in  the 
natural  solution  which  it  furnishes  to  those  infernal 
massacres,  which  else,  as  they  must  remain  for  ever 
without  a  parallel,  will  also  remain  for  ever  without 
an  intelligible  motive.  These  atrocities  were  exacted 
from  the  sepoys  by  the  conclave  of  princes  as  tests  of 
their  sincerity.  Such  doubtless  was  the  argument 
for  this  exaction,  the  ostensible  plea  put  forward  to 
the  miserable  reptiles  who  were  seduced  into  this 
treason,  by  the  promise  no  doubt  of  sharing  in  the 
fruits  of  the  new  and  mighty  revolution.  Such  pleas 
were  for  the  sepoy.  But  for  himself  and  his  own 
secret  benefit  the  princely  seducer  needed  all  that  he 
could  obtain  of  such  accursed  acts,  as  the  means  sure 
and  sudden  of  making  the  separation  between  the 
soldier  and  the  government  more  and  more  irreparable. 
So  much  for  the  massacre  of  his  officers  :   but  a 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  349 

different  reason  availed  for  the  more  diabolical  out- 
rages upon  women  and  their  children.  The  murder 
of  the  men  was  extorted  from  the  sepoy  as  a  kind 
of  sacrifice.  "With  tliem  the  reptile  had  lived  upon 
terms  of  humanising  intercourse ;  and,  vile  as  he 
was,  in  many  cases  this  must  have  slowly  ripened 
into  some  mode  of  regard  and  involuntary  esteem  ;  so 
that,  in  murdering  the  man,  oftentimes  a  sepoy  was 
making  a  real  (if  trifling)  sacrifice.  But  for  females 
he  cared  nothing  at  all.  And  in  my  opinion  they 
perished  on  a  very  different  principle.  The  male 
murders  were  levied  as  pledges  for  the  benefit  of  the 
princes,  and  very  distinctly  understood  to  be  levied 
against  the  wishes  of  the  sepoy.  But  in  the  female 
sacrifice  all  parties  concurred  —  sepoy  and  prince, 
tempted  and  tempter  alike.  I  require  you  to  murder 
this  officer,  as  a  pledge  of  your  real  hostility  (which 
else  might  be  a  pure  pretence)  to  the  government. 
But  the  murder  of  the  oflScer's  wife  and  child  rested 
on  a  motive  totally  different — namely,  this : — Through- 
out Hindostan  no  feature  in  the  moral  aspects  of  the 
British  nature  could  have  been  so  conspicuous  or  so 
impressive  as  the  tenacity  of  purpose,  the  persistency, 
and  the  dogged  resolution  never  to  relax  a  grasp  once 
taken.  Consequently,  had  the  men  of  our  nation, 
and  they  separately  from  the  women,  scattered  them- 
selves here  and  there  over  the  land  (as  they  have 
long  done  in  China,  for  instance),  then,  perhaps,  the 
natives,  when  finding  themselves  in  conflict  with  this 
well-known  principle  of  imperishable  tenacity,  would 
be  liable  to  a  sentiment  of  despair,  as  in  a  contest 
with  fate.  And  that  sentiment  would  paralyse  the 
Hindoos  when  entering  upon  a  struggle  for  unrooting 


350  DE    QUINCEY. 

the  British  from  Hindostan.  But  here  suddenly, 
Woman  steps  in  to  aid  the  Hindoo.  For  the  Briton, 
it  is  notorious,  would  never  loosen  his  hold,  more 
than  his  compatriot  the  bull-dog.  But  that  scene 
which  a  man  had  faced  steadily  upon  his  own  account, 
he  shrinks  from  as  a  husband  or  a  father.  Hence 
the  sepoy  attacks  upon  women  and  children. 

From  hurried  writing,  it  is  to  be  feai-ed  that  I  may 
have  done  slight  justice  to  my  own  views.  Let  me 
conclude  this  head  therefore  by  biiefly  resuming. 

The  argument  for  tracing  back  the  great  conspiracy 
to  the  discontented  rajahs  is — that  otherwise,  and 
supposing  the  mutiny  raised  for  objects  specially 
affecting  the  sepoys,  they  would  not  have  massacred 
their  officers.  Theij  must  have  desired  to  leave  an 
opening  for  pardon  in  the  event  of  failure.  That 
crime  was  exacted  to  compromise  the  native  army 
effectually  with  the  government.  But  this  in  many 
ways  was  sure  to  operate  ruinously  for  the  sepoy 
interests,  and  could  therefore  have  found  a  sufficient 
motive  only  with  the  native  princes. 

But  t\ie  female  sacrifice  was  welcome  to  all  parties. 
For  no  doubt  they  represented  the  British  officer 
as  saying : — So  long  as  the  danger  affected  only 
myself,  I  would  never  have  relaxed  my  hold  on  India  ; 
but  now,  when  the  war  threatens  our  women  and 
children,  India  can  no  longer  be  a  home  for  us. 

Another  urgent  question  concerns  the  acts  of  the 
Bengal  Government.  Many  vinfounded  charges,  as 
in  a  case  of  infinite  confusion  and  hourly  pr-essure, 
must  be  aimed  at  the  Governor-General :  the  pro- 
bability of  such  charges,  and  the  multiplied  experi- 
ence of  such  charges,  makes  reasonable  men  cautious 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  351 

• — ill  fact,  unduly  so ;  and  the  excess  of  caution  reacts 
upon  Lord  Canning's  estimation  too  advantageously. 
Lord  Dalhousie  is  missed ;  his  energy  would  have 
shown  itself  conspicuously  by  this  time.  For  surely 
in  such  a  case  as  the  negotiation  with  Bahadoor  Jung 
of  Nepaul,  as  to  the  Ghoorkas,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
at  2)resent,  though  a  great  doubt,  unfairly  indulgent 
to  Lord  Canning,  was  encouraged  at  first,  that  most 
imbecile  oscillation  governed  the  Calcutta  counsels. 
And  it  is  now  settled  that  this  oscillation  turned 
entirely  upon  a  petty  personal  motive.  A  subordi- 
nate officer  had  accepted  the  Nepaul  offer,  and  by 
that  unauthorised  acceptance  had  intruded  upon  the 
prei'ogative  of  Lord  Canning.  Tlie  very  same  cause 
— this  jealous  punctiliousness  of  exacting  vanity,  and 
not  any  wish  to  enforce  the  severities  of  public  jus- 
tice— interfered  to  set  aside  the  proclamation  of  Mr. 
Colvin  at  Agra.  The  insufficiency  again  of  the  steps 
taken  as  to  Nena  Sahib  speaks  the  same  language. 
In  this  very  journal,  full  six  weeks  earlier  than  in 
the  Calcutta  proclamation,  the  offer  of  a  large  sum  * 
for  this  man's  head  had  been  suggested.  That  offer 
was  never  kept  sufficiently  before  the  public  eye. 
But  a  grosser  neglect  than  this,  as  affecting  the  con- 
dition of  many  thousands,  and  not  of  any  single 
villain,  was  the  non-employment  of  the  press  in  pur- 
suing the  steps  of  the  mutineers.  Everywhere,  as 
fast  as  they  appeared  in  any  strength,  brief  handbills 

*  And  imperfectly  as  the  offer  was  advertised,  it  seems  to 
have  had  considerable  effect.  Apparently  it  has  extingiiislied 
the  Nena's  power  to  show  himself,  and  to  move  about  with 
freedom.  He  is  now  distrustful  and  jealous — ofieii  no  doubt 
with  very  little  reason. 


352  DE    QUINCEY. 

should  have  been  circulated  —  circumstantially  re- 
lating their  defeats,  exposing  their  false  pretences, 
and  describing  their  prospects.  Once  only  the 
government  attempted  such  a  service;  and  blundered 
so  far  as  to  urge  against  the  sepoys  a  reproach  which 
must  have  been  unintelligible  both  to  them  and  to 
all  native  readers. 

Again,  a  question  even  more  practical  and  instant 
arises  as  to  the  modes  of  public  vengeance. 

1.  If,  when  finally  defeated,  and  in  a  military  sense 
destroyed,  on  some  signal  field  of  battle,  the  muti- 
neers should  fly  to  the  hills  in  the  great  ranges,  or 
the  jungle,  the  main  fear  would  arise  not  from 
tliem,  but  from  the  weak  compromising  government, 
that  would  show  itself  eager  to  treat,  and  make  what 
the  Roman  law  calls  a  transactio,  or  half-and-half 
settlement  with  any  body  of  sepoys  that  showed  a 
considerable  strength.  But,  in  such  a  case,  besides 
that  the  rebels,  having  now  no  Delhi,  will  have 
scanty  ammunition,  our  best  resource  would  be  found 
in  the  Spanish  bloodhounds  of  Cuba,  which  we  British 
used  fifty  years  back  for  hunting  down  the  poor  negro 
Maroons  in  Jamaica,  who  were  not  by  a  thousand 
degrees  so  criminal  as  the  sepoys. 

2.  That  no  wrong  is  done  to  the  Bengal  Govern- 
ment by  this  anticipation  of  an  eventual  comjromise, 
may  be  judged  by  the  assertion  (resting  apparently 
on  adequate  authority),  that  even  at  this  hour  that 
government  are  making  it  a  subject  for  delibera- 
tion and  doubt — whether  the  sepoys  have  forfeited 
their  pensions  !  Doubtless,  the  Delhi  and  Cawnpore 
exploits  merit  good-service  pensions  for  life  ! 

3.  Others  by  millions,  who  come  to  these  questions 


THE    ENGLISH    IN    INDIA.  353 

in  a  far  nobler  spirit,  fear  that  at  any  rate,  and  with 
eveiy  advantage  for  a  righteous  judgment,  too  many 
of  the  worst  sepoys  laden  with  booty  may  find  means 
to  escape.  To  these  I  would  suggest  that,  after  all, 
the  appropriate,  worst,  aud  most  hellish  of  punish- 
ments for  hellish  malefactors,  is  mortification  and 
utter  ruin  in  every  one  of  their  schemes.  What  is 
the  thrust  of  a  bayonet  or  the  deepest  of  sabre-cuts  1 
These  are  over  in  a  few  moments.  And  I  with  others 
rejoiced  therefore  that  so  many  escaped  from  Delhi 
for  prolonged  torment.  That  torment  will  be  found 
in  the  ever-rankling  deadly  mortification  of  knowing 
that  in  all  things  they  and  their  wicked  comrades 
have  failed ;  and  that  in  the  coming  spring,  and 
amongst  the  resurrections  of  spring,  when  all  will  be 
finished,  and  the  mighty  storm  will  have  wheeled 
away,  there  remains  for  the  children  of  hell  only  this 
surviving  consciousness — that  the  total  result  has 
been  the  awakening  of  our  Indian  Government,  and 
the  arming  it  for  ever  against  a  hideous  peril,  that 
might  else  have  overwhelmed  it  unprepai-ed  in  an 
hour  of  slumbering  weakness.  Such  a  game  is  played 
but  once ;  and,  having  failed,  never  again  can  it  be 
repeated. 


VOL.    I. 


ON  NOVELS. 

(Two  pages  written  in  a  Ladys  Album.*) 

A  FALSE  ridicule  has  settled  upon  Novels,  and  upon 
Young  Ladies  as  the  readers  of  novels.  Love,  we  are 
told  authoritatively,  has  not  that  importance  in  the 
actual  practice  of  life — nor  that  extensive  inflvience 
upon  human  affairs — which  novel-writers  postulate, 
and  which  the  interest  of  novels  presumes.  Some- 
thing to  this  effect  has  been  said  by  an  eminent 
writer ;  and  the  law  is  genei-ally  laid  down  upon 
these  principles  by  cynical  old  men,  and  envious  blue- 
stockings who  have  outlived  their  personal  attractions. 
The  sentiment  however  is  false  even  for  the  present 
condition  of  society ;  and  it  will  become  continually 
more  false  as  society  improves.  For  what  is  the  great 
commanding  event,  the  one  sole  revolution,  in  a 
woman's  life  ?  Marriage.  Viewing  her  coui-se  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave  in  the  light  of  a  drama,  I  am 
entitled  to  say  that  her  wedding-day  is  its  catastrophe 
• — or,  in  technical  language,  its  peripeteia :  whatever 
else  is  important  to  her  in  succeeding  years  has  its 
origin  in  that  event.  So  much  for  that  sex.  For  the 
other,  it  is  admitted  that  Love  is  not,  in  the  same 

*  This  was  published  in  facsimile  from  llie  Original  MS.  in 
The  Archivist  and  Autograph  llcvicw,  edited  by  S.  Davey, 
r.R.S  L.— June,  1888.     [H.] 


ON    NOVELS.  600 

exclusive  sense,  the  governing  pi-inciple  under  wliich 
their  lives  move  :  but  what  then  are  the  concurrent 
forces,  which  sometimes  happen  to  cooperate  with 
that  agency — but  more  frequently  disturb  it  1  They 
are  two ;  Ambition,  and  Avarice.  Now  for  the  vast 
majority  of  men — Ambition,  or  the  passion  for  per- 
sonal distinction,  has  too  narrow  a  stage  of  action,  its 
grounds  of  hope  are  too  fugitive  and  unsteady,  to 
furnish  any  durable  or  domineering  inflvience  upon 
the  course  of  life.  Avarice  again  is  so  repulsive  to 
the  native  nobility  of  the  human  heart,  that  it  rarely 
obtains  the  dignity  of  a  passion :  great  energy  of 
character  is  requisite  to  form  a  consistent  and  accom- 
plished miser  :  and  of  the  mass  of  men  it  may  be  said 
— that,  if  the  beneficence  of  nature  has  in  some 
measure  raised  them  above  avarice  by  the  necessity  of 
those  social  instincts  which  she  has  impressed  upon 
their  hearts,  in  some  measure  also  they  sink  below  it 
by  their  deficiencies  in  that  austerity  of  self-denial 
and  that  savage  strength  of  will  which  are  indis- 
pensable  qualifications  for  the  role  of  heroic  miser.  A 
perfect  miser  in  fact  is  a  great  man,  and  therefore  a 
very  rare  one.  Take  away  then  the  two  forces  of  Am- 
bition and  Avarice, — what  remains  even  to  the  male 
sex  as  a  capital  and  overruling  influence  in  life, 
except  the  much  nobler  fox'ce  of  Love  1  History  con- 
firms this  view  :  the  self-devotions  and  the  voluntary 
martyrdoms  of  all  other  passions  collectively  have 
been  few  by  comparison  with  those  which  have  been 
offered  at  the  altar  of  Love.  If  society  should  ever 
make  any  great  advance,  and  man  as  a  species  grow 
conspicuously  nobler,  Love  also  will  grow  nobler ; 
and  a  passion,  which  at  present  is  possible  in  any 

Z  2 


356  DE    QUINCEY. 

elevated  form,  for  one  perhaps  in  a  hundred,  will  then 
be  coextensive  with  the  human  heart. 

On  this  view  of  the  grandeur  which  belongs  to  the 
passion  of  Sexual  Love  in  the  economy  of  life,  as  it  is 
and  as  it  may  be,  Novels  have  an  all-sufficient  justi- 
fication ;  and  Novel-readers  are  obeying  a  higher  and 
more  philosophic  impulse  than  they  are  aware  of. 
They  seek  an  imaginary  world  where  the  harsh  hin- 
drances, which  in  the  real  one  too  often  fret  and 
disturb  the  '  course  of  true  love,'  may  be  forced  to 
bend  to  the  claims  of  justice  and  the  pleadings  of  the 
heart.  In  company  with  the  agitations  and  the  dread 
suspense — the  anguish  and  the  tears,  which  so  often 
wait  upon  the  uncertainties  of  earthly  love,  they  de- 
maud  at  the  hands  of  the  Novelist  a  final  event 
corresponding  to  the  natural  award  of  celestial  wisdom 
and  benignity.  What  they  are  striving  after,  in  short, 
is — to  realize  an  ideal ;  and  to  rei^oduce  the  actual 
world  under  more  harmonious  arrangements.  This  is 
the  secret  craving  of  the  reader ;  and  Novels  are 
shaped  to  meet  it.  With  what  success,  is  a  separate 
and  independent  question  :  the  execution  cannot  pre- 
judice the  estimate  of  their  aim  and  essential  purpose. 

Fair  and  unknown  Owner  of  this  Album,  whom 
perhaps  I  have  never  seen — whom  perhaps  I  never 
shall  see,  pardon  me  for  wasting  two  pages  of  your 
elegant  manual  upon  this  semi-metaphysical  disquisi- 
tion. Let  the  subject  plead  my  excuse.  And  believe 
that  I  am,  Fair  Incognita  ! 

Your  faithful  servant, 

Thomas  de  Quincey. 

Professor  Wilson's — Glocester  Place,  Edinburgh. 
Friday  flight,  Dcccynhcr  3,  1830. 


DE   QUINCEY'S   PORTRAIT. 

The  only  one  which  can  be  considered  satisfactory 
is  that  of  which  a  copy  is  prefixed  to  these  Vohimes. 
It  is  from  a  steel  engraving  by  Frank  Croll,  taken  at 
Edinburgh  from  a  daguerreotype  by  Howie  in  1850. 

De  Quincey's  own  opinion  of  it  is  expressed  to  me 
in  the  amusing  letter  which  was  published  in  The 
Instructor  (New  Series,  vol.  vi.  p.  145). 

TO    THE    EDITOR    OF    THE   INSTRUCTOR. 

September  2\,  1850. 

My  Dear  Sir, — I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  com- 
municating to  us  (that  is,  to  my  daughters  and  myself) 
the  engraved  portrait,  enlarged  from  the  daguerreotype 
original.  The  engraver,  at  least,  seems  to  have  done 
his  part  ably.  As  to  one  of  the  earlier  artists  con- 
cerned, viz.  the  sun  of  July,  I  suppose  it  is  not 
allowable  to  complain  of  him,  else  my  daughters  are 
inclined  to  upbi'aid  him  with  having  made  the  mouth 
too  long.  But,  of  old,  it  was  held  audacity  to  suspect 
the  sun's  veracity  :  — '  Solem  quis  dicere  f  alsum 
audeat !  '  And  I  remember  that,  half  a  centiiry  ago, 
the  Sun  newspaper,  in  London,  used  to  fight  under 


358  DE   QUINCEY. 

sanction  of  that  motto.  But  it  was  at  length  dis- 
covered by  the  learned,  that  Sun  junior,  viz.  the 
newspaper,  did  sometimes  indulge  in  fibbing.  The 
ancient  prejudice  about  the  solar  truth  broke  down, 
therefore,  in  that  instance ;  and  who  knows  but  Sun 
senior  may  be  detected,  now  that  our  optical  glasses 
are  so  much  improved,  in  similar  practices  1  in  which 
case  he  may  have  only  been  '  keeping  his  hand  in ' 
when  operating  upon  that  one  feature  of  the  mouth. 
The  rest  of  the  poi'trait,  we  all  agree,  does  credit  to 
his  talents,  showing  that  he  is  still  wide-awake, 
and  not  at  0.II  the  superannuated  old  artist  that 
some  speculators  in  philosophy  had  dreamed  of  his 
becoming. 

As  an  accompaniment  to  this  portrait,  your  wish  is 
that  I  should  furnish  a  few  brief  chronological  mem- 
oranda of  my  own  life.  That  would  be  hard  for  me 
to  do,  and  when  done,  might  not  be  very  interesting 
for  others  to  read.  Nothing  makes  such  dx^eary  and 
monotonous  reading  as  the  old  hackneyed  roll-call, 
chronologically  arrayed,  of  inevitable  facts  in  a  man's 
life.  One  is  so  certain  of  the  man's  having  been  born, 
and  also-  of  his  having  died,  that  it  is  dismal  to  lie 
under  the  necessity  of  reading  it.  That  the  man 
began  by  being  a  boy — that  he  went  to  school — and 
that,  by  intense  application  to  his  studies,  '  which  he 
took  to  be  his  portion  in  this  life,'  he  rose  to  distinc- 
tion as  a  robber  of  orchards,  seems  so  probable,  upon 
the  whole,  that  I  am  willing  to  accept  it  as  a  postulate. 
That  he  mari'ied — that,  in  fulness  of  time,  he  was 
hanged,  or  (being  a  humble,  unambitious  man)  that 
he  was  content  with  deserving  it — these  little  circum- 
stances are  so  naturally  to  be  looked  for,  as  sown 


DE  quincey's  portrait.  359 

broadcast  up  and  down  the  great  fields  of  biography, 
that  any  one  life  becomes,  in  this  respect,  but  the 
echo  of  thousands.  Chronologic  successions  of  events 
and  dates,  such  as  these,  which,  belonging  to  the  race, 
illustrate  nothing  in  the  individual,  are  as  vpearisome 
as  they  are  useless. 

A  better  plan  will  be — to  detach  some  single 
chapter  from  the  experiences  of  childhood,  which  is 
likely  to  offer,  at  least,  this  kind  of  value — either 
that  it  will  record  some  of  the  deep  impressions  under 
which  my  childish  sensibilities  expanded,  and  the 
ideas  which  at  that  time  brooded  continually  over  my 
mind,  or  else  will  expose  the  traits  of  character  that 
slumbered  in  those  around  me.  This  plan  will  have 
the  advantage  of  not  being  liable  to  the  suspicion  of 
vanity  or  egotism  ;  for  I  beg  the  reader  to  understand 
distinctly,  that  I  do  not  offer  this  sketch  as  deriving 
any  part  of  what  interest  it  may  have  from  myself, 
as  the  person  concerned  in  it.  If  the  particular  ex- 
perience selected  is  really  interesting,  in  virtue  of  its 
own  circumstances,  then  it  matters  not  to  whom  it 
happened.  Suppose  that  a  man  should  record  a 
perilous  journey,  it  will  be  no  fair  inference,  that  he 
records  it  as  a  journey  performed  by  himself.  Most 
sincerely  he  may  be  able  to  say,  that  he  I'ecords  it 
not  for  that  relation  to  himself,  but  in  spite  of  that 
relation.  The  incidents,  being  absolutely  independ- 
ent, in  their  power  to  amuse,  of  all  personal  reference, 
must  be  equally  interesting  [he  will  say]  whether 
they  occui-red  to  A  or  to  B.  That  is  viy  case.  Let 
the  reader  abstract  from  me  as  a  person  that  by 
accident,  or  in  some  partial  sense,  may  have  been  pre- 
viously known  to  himself.     Let  him  read  the  sketch 


360  DE   QUINCE Y. 

as  belonging  to  one  who  wishes  to  be  profoundly 
anonymous.  I  offer  it  not  as  owing  anything  to  its 
connection  with  a  particular  individual,  but  as  likely 
to  be  amusing  separately  for  itself ;  and  if  I  make 
any  mistake  in  tJiat,  it  is  not  a  mistake  of  vanity 
exaggerating  the  consequence  of  Avhat  relates  to  my 
own  childhood,  but  a  simple  mistake  of  the  judgment 
as  to  the  power  of  amusement  that  may  attach  to  a 
particular  succession  of  reminiscences. 

Excuse  the  imperfect  development  which  in  some 
places  of  the  sketch  may  have  been  given  to  my 
meaning.  I  suffer  from  a  most  afflicting  derangement 
of  the  nervous  system,  which  at  times  makes  it  diffi- 
cult for  me  to  write  at  all,  and  always  makes  me  im- 
patient, in  a  degree  not  easily  understood,  of  recasting 
what  may  seem  insufficiently,  or  even  incoherently, 
expressed. — Believe  me,  ever  yours, 

Thomas  de  Quincey. 

This  letter  was  a  preface  to  '  A  Sketch  from  Child- 
hood,' of  which  the  first  and  second  parts  appeared  in 
that  Volume. 

After  this  came  a  blank  of  six  months — a  whole 
Volume  containing  nothing.  In  Volume  VIII.  (Janu- 
ary, 1852),  'A  Sketch  from  Childhood'  was  resumed 
with  the  following  whimsical  apology.  It  then  ran 
for  five  months  consecutively  : — 

{January,  1852.) 

I  UNDERSTAND  that  Several  readers  of  my  Sketch 
from  Childhood  have  lodged  complaints  against  me  for 
not  having  pursued  it  to  what  they  can  regard  as  a 


DE    QUINCEY's    rORTRAIT.  361 

satisfactory  close.  Some  may  have  done  this  in  a 
gentle  tone,  as  against  an  irreclaimable  procrastinator, 
amiably  inclined,  perhaps,  to  penitence,  though  consti- 
tutionally incapable  of  amendment ;  but  others  more 
clamorously,  as  against  one  faithless  to  his  engage- 
ments, and  deliberately  a  defaulter.  Themselves  they 
regard  in  the  light  of  creditors,  and  me  as  a  slippery 
debtor,  who,  having  been  permitted  to  pay  his  debts 
by  instalments — three,  suppose,  or  four — has  paid 
two,  and  then  absconded  in  order  to  evade  the  rest. 
Certainly  to  this  extent  I  go  along  with  them  myself, 
that,  in  all  cases  of  a  tale  or  story  moving  through 
the  regular  stages  of  a  plot,  the  writer,  by  the  act  of 
publishing  the  introductory  parts,  pledges  himself  to 
unweave  the  whole  tissue  to  the  last.  The  knot  that 
he  has  tied,  though  it  should  prove  a  very  Gordian 
knot,  he  is  bound  to  untie.  And,  if  he  fails  to  do  so, 
I  doubt  whether  a  reader  has  not  a  right  of  action 
against  him  for  having  wantonly  irritated  a  curiosity 
that  was  never  meant  to  be  gratified — for  having 
trifled  with  his  feelings — and,  possibly,  for  having 
distressed  and  perplexed  his  moral  sense ;  as,  for 
instance,  by  entangling  the  hero  and  heroine  (two 
young  people  that  can  be  thoroughly  recommended 
for  virtue)  in  an  Irish  bog  of  misfortunes,  and  there 
leaving  them  to  their  fate — the  gentleman  up  to  his 
shoulders,  and  the  poor  lady,  therefore,  in  all  proba- 
bility up  to  her  lips.  But,  in  a  case  like  the  present, 
where  the  whole  is  offered  as  a  shetch,  an  action  would 
not  lie.  A  sketch,  by  its  very  name,  is  understood 
to  be  a  fragmentary  thing  :  it  is  a  torso,  which  may 
want   the  head,  or  the  feet,  or  the  arms,  and  still 


362  DE    QUIXCEY. 

remain  a  marketable  piece  of  sculj^ture.  In  buying  a 
horse,  you  may  look  into  bis  mouth,  but  not  in 
buying  a  torso :  for,  if  all  his  teeth  have  been  gone 
for  ten  centuries,  Avhich  would  certainly  operate  in 
the  way  of  discount  upon  the  price  of  a  horse,  very 
possibly  the  loss  would  be  urged  as  a  good  ground 
for  an  extra  premium  upon  the  torso.  Besides,  it  is 
hard  to  see  how  any  proper  end  could  be  devised  for 
a  paper  of  this  nature,  reciting  a  few  incidents,  sad 
and  gay,  from  the  records  of  a  half-forgotten  child- 
hood, unless  by  putting  the  child  to  death  ;  for  which 
denouement,  unhappily,  there  was  no  solid  historical 
foundation. 

Right  or  wrong,  however,  my  accusers  are  entitled 
to  my  gratitvide ;  since  in  the  very  fact  of  their 
anger  is  involved  a  compliment.  By  proclaiming 
their  indignation  against  the  procrastinating  or 
absconding  sketcher,  they  proclaim  their  interest  in 
the  sketch  ;  and,  therefore,  if  any  fierce  Peter  Peebles 
should  hang  upon  my  skirts,  haling  me  back  to  work, 
and  denouncing  me  to  the  world  as  a  fugitive  from 
my  public  duties,  I  shall  not  feel  myself  called  upon 
to  contradict  him.  As  often  as  he  nails  me  with  the 
charge  of  being  a  skulker  from  work  in  meditafione 
fugcB,  I  shall  turn  round  and  nail  Idm  with  the 
charge  of  harbouring  an  intense  admiration  for  me, 
and  putting  a  most  hyperbolical  value  upon  my 
services ;  or  else  why  should  he  give  himself  so 
much  trouble,  after  so  many  months  are  gone  by,  in 
pursuing  and  recapturing  me  ?  On  this  principle,  I 
shall  proceed  with  others  who  may  have  joined  the 
cry  of  the  accusers,  obediently  submitting  to  their 


DE  quinx'ey's  portrait.  363 

pleasure,  doing  my  best,  therefore,  to  supply  a  con- 
clusiou  which  in  my  own  eyes  had  not  seemed 
absolutely  required,  and  content  to  bear  the  utmost 
severity  of  their  censure  as  applied  to  myself,  the 
woi-kman,  in  consideration  of  the  approbation  which 
that  censure  carries  with  it  by  implication  to  the 
work  itself. 


END    OF    VOLUME    I. 


PR 

H6 

1890 

v.l 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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